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THE FAMOUS NEW YORK 
FUNDAMENTALIST—MODERNIST DEBATES 





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FUNDAMENTAL 
MODERNIST 
DEBATES 


THE ORTHODOX SIDE 
BY if 


REV. JOHN ROACH STRATON, D.D. 
Pastor Calvary Baptist Church, New York 





Y YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT, 1924, 1925 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


THE FAMOUS NEW YORK FUNDAMENTALIST-MODERNIST DEBATES 
APISES (Manas 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


INTRODUCTION 
By Rev. John Roach Straton, D.D. 


In this volume the main addresses and the rebuttals 
from the orthodox side are given in the four debates 
held in New York between Dr. Charles Francis Potter, 
the Unitarian pastor, and myself. 

Dr. Potter’s addresses are not given, as his line of 
thought is sufficiently indicated in my side of the debates. 

Any who desire his presentation may obtain it, as the 
full debates are in printed form in separate booklets. 


Victory for the Old Truth 


I am glad to be able to say that these debates in a very 
true sense seem to have vindicated the great fundamentals 
of the Christian faith in open and widely noted ways. I 
am glad to be able to say that out of twelve votes cast by 
the judges in the four debates, the views that I championed 
won eight of the twelve. In fact, the only clear-cut and 
unanimous decisions won in the series of debates were 
both won by the side which I had the honor to represent. 
The debate on Evolution and the debate on the Deity of 
our Lord won the unammous decision of the judges, two 
of the judges in each case being judges of the Supreme 
Court of New York and the third judge being a lawyer 
of world-wide reputation and former Chairman of the 
War Industries Board. In the case of the other two de- 
bates there were split decisions, and in the case of the 
debate on the Virgin Birth there were certain irregularities 
discovered after the debate in connection with the selec- 
tion of the substitute judges, who were called upon at the 

v 


INTRODUCTION 


last moment to serve, which seemed to demand that even 
that split decision be either set aside or the question be 
redebated before the regularly selected judges—men who 
met the requirements of the original agreement for the 
arrangements of the debate. 


Is it Biblical to Debate? 


When Dr. Potter challenged me to this series of debates 
on the great fundamental questions of religion, I promptly 
accepted his challenge. As to the desirability and value 
of religious debates there can scarcely be any division 
of opinion. The Bible enjoins us to “be ready always 
to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason 
of the hope that is in you” (I Peter 3:15); and we are 
further exhorted to “contend earnestly for the faith which 
was once for all delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3). The 
ancient prophets were constantly debating and contending 
against error, as witness Elijah on Mount Carmel against 
the prophets of Baal. The New Testament is full of 
accounts of debates over the great truths of revealed 
religion, and periods of discussion and debate of such 
issues have always been periods of growth in the church. 
We may well be hopeful, therefore, that great good will 
finally come out of the widespread religious agitations of 
today. And certainly it is undeniable that if the great 
truths of religion cannot stand discussion and vindicate 
themselves on their merits, then they have no right to 
claim the allegiance and support of the human race. 


Answering Modernists’ Publicity 


The New York newspapers have naturally given much 
space, for years now, to the revolutionary religious views 
of the radicals, or “Modernists,” as they call themselves. 

vi 


INTRODUCTION 


I felt that the debates would give an opportunity to get the 
other side—the conservative, orthodox, believing side— 
before the public, and so it is proving. 

At the time that Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, a Bap- 
tist, preached his radical sermon against the undamen- 
talists, in which he took the side of the “Liberals” or 
“Modernists” against the true inspiration and authority 
of the Bible as God’s word, against the Virgin Birth of 
our Lord, His substitutionary atonement, and His 
second coming, he also really caricatured the orthodox 
belief on some of these great questions. I felt, there- 
fore, that he ought to be willing to face in the open a 
representative of those whose views he had misstated 
and distorted in the interest of his radical propaganda; 
and so, as President of our Baptist Fundamentalist 
League of New York, I challenged him to a series of 
joint debates on these questions. He declined and ex- 
cused himself, under circumstances that made me feel 
that he was really running to cover. 

Again, when Dr. W. H. P. Faunce, President of 
Brown University, a Baptist institution, came out with 
books and articles in magazines having a world-wide 
circulation, in which he also expressed views that it 
seemed to me amounted not only to a repudiation of our 
age-long Baptist beliefs, but to a denial of the very 
essentials of evangelical Christianity, I expressed the 
desire to meet him in debate for a frank public discus- 
sion of these vital issues. Nothing came of this either, 
however, as Dr. Faunce declined even to give the news- 
paper men an interview over these matters. 


A Consistent Modernist 


When Mr. Potter, therefore, challenged me to debates 
on these very questions at issue, and said that Drs. Fos- 
vii 


INTRODUCTION 


dick and Faunce were friends of his, I felt moved to 
accept his challenge. I was really glad to debate with 
Mr. Potter because he is an out-and-out Modernist, who 
is not afraid to show his colors and who does not, like 
the Modernists within the orthodox ranks, resort to 
verbal ambiguities and the use of religious language 
with a double meaning. He calls a spade a spade, and 
is honest in his beliefs, or, perhaps I should say, his 
unbeliefs. The debates demonstrated to all people just 
what Modernism is and just how radical and revolu- 
tionary are its views. 

I am frank to say that I have no respect for the 
radicals in the Protestant denominations who insist on 
staying inside and tearing down the faith of the church 
while they still eat the bread of the church! I cannot 
regard them as either consistent, courageous or honest 
men. Robert Ingersoll was, in the beginning, a son of 
the church; but when he lost his faith he had the fair- 
ness and courage to step out of the ranks and carry on 
his propaganda on a self-supporting platform of his own 
making. Therefore, while deploring and even execrat- 
ing his views, one could, nevertheless, respect the man 
for his consistency and honesty. 

I, therefore, though pained by his views, nevertheless 
respected Mr. Potter because when he lost his faith in 
Baptist and evangelical views of religion he left the 
Baptist church and joined the Unitarians, 

I feel, too, as a Baptist, some sense of responsibility 
for Mr. Potter, since he is a product of one of our oldest 
Baptist universities and one of our most famous Baptist 
theological seminaries. But Mr. Potter was honest 
enough to step out when he could no longer conscien- 
tiously walk with the Baptists. Therefore, I could con- 
scientiously meet him in debate because, while there was 

Vill 


INTRODUCTION 


absolutely no religious fellowship possible between us, I 
did feel that he was sincere, and I earnestly hoped that he 
might be turned back to the faith from which he had been 
led astray by false teachers in Baptist schools. And I still 
hope that such may be the case. 


Good Fruit from the Debates 


I am happy to say that a flood of letters and messages 
from all over the world, some of them from some of the 
greatest and noblest of the Lord’s servants, praising God 
for the discussions and thanking me for the hard work I 
put into them, far more than offset any misunderstanding 
or misapprehension. One of the greatest evangelists and 
Bible expositors, and one of the most thoroughgoing 
Fundamentalists in our country, for example, in addition 
to other kind things has this to say about the debates: 


You did the greatest work of your life in 
accepting the challenge for these debates. It 
means more for the truth than any other thing 
that was ever done in New York. And the in- 
fluence reaches far beyond New York. 


Best of all, however, I rejoice with joy unspeakable 
over the fact that there were conversions as a result 
of each one of these debates. There were some very 
precious and notable instances of the direct working of 
God’s Holy Spirit in regenerating the hearts of some who 
perhaps had never heard the true Gospel before they 
listened to it during these discussions. 

I recall the case of one young man—a very able and 
lovable lad and the son of a widowed mother. I had 
known her in a former pastorate in another state, and I 
knew that her heart had been long burdened for the salva- 

ix 


INTRODUCTION 


tion of that dear boy. I did not even know that he was 
present in the vast congregation that attended the first 
debate. I had been quite ill and got out of a sick bed to 
come to the debate. When it was over, therefore, I 
hurried out as soon as possible, and while I was waiting 
in my automobile for the other members of my family to 
join me—they having been held up by the crush of people 
inside—this young man came up to shake hands with me 
and to thank me for my effort in the debate. I saw that 
he was deeply moved and that he seemed to be touched 
by what I had said concerning the Bible as God’s Word 
and the glory of the old-time faith. 

So I invited him to come into the automobile, and he 
sat down beside me. I soon saw evidences that the Holy 
Spirit was dealing with him, and I was then led to ask 
him if he would not go farther than a mere expression 
of appreciation for the truth that he had listened to, and 
act upon that truth by accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as 
his Saviour from sin. Shaken with profound emotion, 
and with tears upon his cheeks, he told me that an arrow 
of conviction about his own sin had come to him during 
the debate, and he then and there made a full and joyful 
surrender to Jesus Christ as Redeemer and Lord. I 
baptized him the following Lord’s Day, and found the 
soul-winner’s reward and joy not only in the evidences of 
peace and grace that had come to him, but in the rejoicing 
of his mother over answered prayer. 

There are other such instances that might be given. A 
brother pastor, for example, wrote me following the last 
debate—that on the Deity of our Lord, in which I laid 
great stress on the atonement of Christ and his present 
power to save sinners—that he was baptizing the follow- 
ing Sunday a woman who had been turned from her 
errors and had been converted at the debate. 

x 


INTRODUCTION 


“Carry On” 


The messages that have come in from the great host 
of people who heard the debates over the radio have con- 
tained evidences of widespread good accomplished by 
these discussions. Like evidences are also beginning to 
come in now that the debates have been put into printed 
form, and the books containing these debate messages are 
carrying into ever wider circles the saving truths of God. 

Best of all, I have had the witness of the Spirit in my 
own heart that I was within the will of God, and I cer- 
tainly know that I was proclaiming the truth of God in all 
these debates. They meant to me a colossal amount of 
extra labor, and yet I found a joy in it all which enabled 
me to carry these extra burdens in addition to the respon- 
sibilities of my church and editorial work. 

May I make, therefore, in closing, a personal appeal 
to all my readers that they will pray the Lord of the 
harvest that he will enable his true children to garner in 
the precious sheaves wherever the seed has fallen and 
produced a harvest from this sowing, and that we may all 
follow the proclamation of God’s truth in these debates 
with such faithful personal work for the lost that many 
others who may have been influenced by these old- 
fashioned truths may be brought into the peace of God 
that passeth all understanding, and service in the kingdom 
of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? 


Study of Calvary Baptist Church 


New York CIty. 


xi 





CONTENTS 


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ONE: THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


I 
FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


Question. 
RESOLVED THAT THE BIBLE IS THE INFALLIBLE WorD OF Gop 


“Bring me the book!” exclaimed Sir Walter Scott on 
his death-bed. ‘‘What book?” asked Lockhart, his son- 
in-law. And the greatest literary genius of the Scottish 
people turned his eyes upon him and answered gently 
“There is but one book! Bring that!’ Lockhart under- 
stood and handed him the Bible. 

We are to deal with that book in this debate. 

I come to this discussion with a certain degree of 
pleasure, because it gives me an opportunity to say a good 
word for the Bible. J am much indebted to it, as it has 
been the greatest formative influence in my life. My 
father was a Scotchman before he became an American, 
and he had the old-time devotion of the Scotch for the 
Scriptures. I was reared, therefore, on a mixed but well- 
balanced diet of oatmeal, Bible precepts, and hickory 
switch. It is not a bad combination as a developer of 
youth. 

I think that the earliest memory of my life is the pic- 
ture in my father’s home where, every morning and every 
_ evening, he gathered the family around the wide-mouthed 
fireplace for the family worship. Father sat at one end of 
the circle and mother at the other, and the children and 
the servants in between, and father read to us from the 
Bible, and then sent up to the Throne of Heaven a fervent 
prayer, either of thanksgiving for blessings received or 
petitions for the needs of the new day. The last words 

1 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


that my sainted mother uttered were a quotation from 
the Bible, and in a time of recent bereavement that fell 
into our present home, when my wife and I had to say 
the long good-bye to our only daughter—a precious child 
of twelve and a half years—the teachings of the Bible 
were our only comfort and stay. 

In this day, therefore, when so many preachers even 
are criticising the Bible and tearing it to pieces, 1 am 
glad of an opportunity to say a good word for the old 
Book. It has proved itself a true and tried friend. I 
have often put it to the test, and it has never failed me. 
To me it is God’s word, and it has proved itself infallible. 
So it has one honest vote to begin with. 

The way in which the subject for debate is stated, 
“RESOLVED THAT THE BIBLE IS THE SiN-= 
FALLIBLE WORD OF GOD,” assumes the existence 
of a living God, capable of revealing Himself to men 
through a book. In championing the affirmative of this 
question, I do not, therefore, have to argue the existence 
of God. 

I begin merely by pointing out a reasonable presup- 
position, namely, that God would necessarily reveal Him- 
self to men. Can you conceive of a king undertaking to 
rule an earthly country without prescribing laws for his 
subjects? If such a thing would be unreasonable in an 
earthly king, then how completely absurd is the thought 
that the King of: Heaven would not provide an adequate 
code of laws and directing principles for His subjects in 
this wonderful world of ours? 

The thought of God leaving either His vast material or 
moral universe to drift without law and without in- 
telligent direction is a thought which, upon its face, is 
so impossible that it is unthinkable to an intelligent mind. 
It is not remarkable, therefore, that we have a revela- 

2 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


tion from God. It would be far more remarkable if we 
did not have such a revelation. 

Consequently, the only real issue before us is the ques- 
tion whether the Bible is that revelation. If the Bible 
is the final and complete revelation from a wise, power- 
ful, holy and loving God, then it must be infallible and 
authoritative, and with that established, the affirmative 
has won. 

I ask you, now, in the beginning of our thought to- 
gether, to consider with mea group of facts, entirely out- 
side the Bible’s claims about itself, which seem to indicate 
that it is a book so absolutely unique that it cannot be 
accounted for on any ground other than that it is an in- 
fallible revelation from the living God. The first of these 
facts is: 


I—THE FACT OF THE BIBLE’'S MIRACULOUS PRESERVATION 
AND INCREASE 


Now no one can deny that the Bible is here. It is an 
objective reality and not a subjective idea. Here it is! 
I hold a copy of it in my hand. It has not only existed 
for thousands of years, but it has existed in the face of 
efforts of all sorts to destroy it. Not only has it been 
subjected to the vicissitudes of fortune and the catas- 
trophes of history that have utterly destroyed other val- 
uable books, which were former treasures of the human 
race, but calculated and definite steps have been taken 
from time to time to wipe it utterly from the earth. 
Toustal bought and burned the whole of Tyndal’s first 
edition, but he utterly failed to destroy the Book or to 
prevent its circulation. Tyndal took the money from this 
first edition and with it printed a far larger edition, and 
the Bibles were shipped into Old England wrapped up 
in bales of cloth, in barrels and kegs, and even in coffins 

3 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


used as packing cases! It is said that in one century 
150,000 people were butchered for reading the Bible. 
The jailer’s key, the headman’s ax, the rope of the gal- 
lows, the fagot of the bigot, the powder of the poisoner, 
the dagger of the assassin have all combined in the effort 
to annihilate it. 

Intellectual pride, too, has often rejected it because of 
the vanity of man’s mind; and infidelity has battled 
against it with a relentlessness worthy of a better cause 
and a malignity unmatched elsewhere in the dark realm 
of prejudice, hatred and spite. What has the result 
been? Always victory for this venerable and noble old 
Book! It has successfully resisted the sophistries of 
Hume, the misguided eloquence of Gibbon, the rational- 
ism of Rousseau, the ignorant blasphemies of Thomas 
Paine, the satirical mockery of Voltaire, the idle quibbling 
of Strauss, the shallow witticisms of Renan, the cheap 
buffoonery of Bob Ingersoll, the audacious assaults of 
the Communists of France, and the insidious duplicity of 
the rationalistic theologians of Prussianized Germany. 
As with Moses’s bush, the Bible has burned, but it has 
not been consumed. Phoenix-like, it has risen from its 
ashes to new heights of usefulness and power. 


500,000,000 BIBLES 


In the 18th century the great French infidel, Voltaire, 
prophesied that, within a hundred years from the time 
when he wrote, the Bible would be an obsolete book. He 
declared that it would go entirely out of circulation and 
that it would be found only as a curio on the shelves of 
antiquarians. As a striking comment on this prophecy 
stands the fact that the house where Voltaire wrote it is 
now owned and used as a storehouse by the French Bible 
Society, and the very walls that looked down on the 

4 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


sneering sceptic as he penned his prophecy are now lit- 
erally lined with hundreds of Bibles! 

One of the most remarkable facts of modern times is 
that the Bible is still the world’s “best seller.” In some 
quarters there is a tendency to discount the Bible in favor 
of science, but I would point out the significant fact that 
while there is scarcely a scientific text-book that is ten 
years old that is not already out of date, the Bible after 
all these thousands of years is still doing business at the 
old stand! Yes, while a decade usually sees the death 
and burial without hope of resurrection of the average 
text-book or popular “best seller,” and while even the 
masterpieces of antiquity line the shores of time like 
pathetic wrecks, this marvelous old Book lives on from 
generation to generation, conquering and to conquer! 

How do you account for it? 

The rate at which Bibles are now being printed by the 
American and British Bible Societies alone represents 
an average of one every five seconds, twelve every minute, 
720 an hour, 17,280 every day in the year. At the cen- 
tennial celebration of these societies in Washington dur- 
ing President Roosevelt’s administration—a meeting that 
was attended by the President, the British ambassador 
and other dignitaries representing the great civilized na- 
tions of mankind—facts were given showing that those 
two societies had printed and circulated 250,000,000 
Bibles in that one hundred years. Let your minds, my 
friends, dwell upon that tremendous truth for a moment. 
Supposing all of these Bibles should be brought together 
at one spot upon the earth’s surface. With them you 
could construct a skyscraper beside which the Woolworth 
Building would dwindle into insignificance. I have es- 
timated that the weight of that number of Bibles was at 
least 47,000 tons. To transport them would require a 

5 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


train 25 miles long drawn by 225 locomotive engines, 
and if the pages of that number of Bibles were spread 
out upon the ground they would afford standing room 
for three times the present population of the earth! 

Nor is that all. It is said that there are now at least 
500,000,000 Bibles in the world. Averaging them at 
eight inches high each, it means that if they were laid end 
to end they would reach almost three times around the 
earth, and if you piled them up one on top of the other 
they would reach up 63,131 miles into the air! 

Why, now, this marvelous record? What is it that 
has caused the Bible to live on in perennial youth and 
ever-increasing power until it has now been translated 
into over 700 languages and dialects of the earth, and 
seven-tenths of the children of men can read it in their 
mother tongue? What is the reason and the secret of it 
all? Jesus Christ said, “Thy word is truth!” Must that 
not be the secret of it? It is in the very nature of an 
error, delusion or lie to destroy itself. The lie carries in 
its bosom the seed of its own destruction. The poet has 
well said: 

“Truth crushed to earth will rise again, 
The eternal years of God are hers; 

But error wounded, writhes in pain 

And dies among her worshippers.” 

This old Book has not died, but has lived on and on in 
ever greater vigor. 

Must this not be true because the Bible is the divine 
and infallible revelation from a wise and loving God? 
Have not men clung to this old Book because they have 
found in it the very bread and water of life? And is it 
not monstrous to suppose that a maze of myths or a cun- 
ningly-devised tissue of errors, superstitions and lies 
could so have gripped the human race? 

6 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


II—THE FACT OF THE BIBLE’S UNIQUE UNIVERSALITY 


Closely akin to what I have just been saying, I wish 
to call attention next to the fact that the Bible has a 
quality of universality which stamps it as infallible and 
divine. The Bible is not for one age, but for all time. 
Neither is it for one nation, but for every tribe and 
tongue. It speaks to the man of the twentieth century 
with the same appealing and compelling power as it did 
to the man of the first century. It speaks to the universal 
human heart, and that heart responds to its utterances as 
it does always instinctively to the voice of truth. Its 
truths convert the Chinaman or the Hottentot in exactly 
the same way that they convert the Englishman or the 
American. This cannot be said of any other of the 
world’s so-called sacred books. The Koran or the Vedas, 
for example, have no appeal to the universal human mind 
and heart, but the Bible has, and this fact in itself stamps 
it as a book apart. 

The very difficulties of the Bible constitute a part of 
this element of universality, and were doubtless, there- 
fore, included deliberately in God’s wise and loving plan 
for revealing Himself to man. The mystery element of 
the Bible troubles some minds, but mystery is a neces- 
sary part of any permanent religion. We are greater 
than anything which we can fully understand. We have 
mastered it, and, therefore, we will not worship the thing 
that we can understand completely, but will pass on and 
leave it, in the search for something higher. If we could 
fully explain all the mysteries contained in the Bible we 
would soon lay it aside. There are problems in nature 
that constantly challenge scientific faith and effort, and 
we know that we will never fathom all of the mysteries 
in this infinite universe. The Bible is a revelation of an 

# 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


infinite God, and so we will never fathom all of its 
mysteries. 

The mystery element is a designed and essential part 
of the divine revelation. The difficulties, the seeming 
contradictions about which my opponent will probably 
speak, the accounts of the miracles, etc., which the Bible 
contains constitute a constant challenge to interest and 
faith. It is said that.a writer once undertook a compila- 
tion of a list of the numerous works written about the 
Bible, and, having collected the titles of 60,000, he gave 
up in despair and quit. What other book ever existed 
about which a hundredth part of this could be said? And 
today the interest in the Bible is deeper and wider than 
ever before. The presence of this great crowd of people 
here at this debate is in itself proof of it. Yes, the best 
thought of the race is being given to the study of this 
old Book. It holds the center of interest even for many 
who do not follow its teachings. But few men study the 
Vedas or the Koran, but the best scholarship of the human 
race centers in the study of the Bible. The keenest in- 
tellects of all civilized nations, the men of profoundest 
patience in research, men of supreme genius in the fields 
of literature, archaeology, language and history are dig- 
ging down for new treasures of truth in this inexhaustible 
gold mine. They cross-examine and exhaustively analyze 
every important word in each Book, and they weigh the 
meaning and setting of every phrase uttered by prophet 
or priest or spoken by the Man of Nazareth amid the 
hills of Judea or beside the limpid waves of Gallilee! 

The age-long discussions which have raged about this 
venerable old volume constitute in themselves a source 
of its perennial life, and we are seeing already that God 
is overruling the efforts of modern rationalism and of 
destructive criticism for His glory and to bring new 

8 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


strength to the Bible. Even the efforts of sceptical critics 
have but served as the furnace which has purified the 
gold. 

MODERN CRITICISM 

Concerning the modern critical difficulties connected 
with the Bible, a word should be said. We are not to 
underestimate the part that scholarship plays in our re- 
ligious interests. Those who love the Bible owe a debt 
to reverent scholarship which they can never pay. We 
may be sure, too, that down the ages new light is to 
break from the sacred page, as the Holy Spirit leads us 
into all the truth. But it has also become now perfectly 
evident that much of the criticism of the age has been 
born of vanity instead of humility, and that its work has 
been carried forward in the spirit of doubt rather than 
that of devotion. 

In opposing the destructive criticism those who love 
the Bible are not opposing the search after truth. All 
should desire the truth from whatever quarter it may 
come. But the sober second thought of the world is com- 
ing to see that the methods of the destructive critics are, 
for the most part, unfair, vain and presumptuous to an 
astounding degree. These men complain of “dogma,” 
and yet they themselves are the greatest dogmatists that 
the world has ever seen. And they dogmatize, too, not 
on the authority of a Divine revelation that has justified 
its claim for centuries, but only on their own hypotheses, 
theories and beliefs of what they think ought to be right. 
They are working on the assumption that the theories of 
evolution are true, and that they apply to the Bible, and 
they strain every point and even manufacture evidence 
when necessary to try to prove their theories. The book 
of Dr. Reginald Campbell of London on “The New 
Theology” is a conspicuous example of this truth. 

9 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


One other illustration will suffice. Wellhausen as- 
serted flatly that Moses could not have written the Pen- 
tateuch, because in the age of Moses society was very 
crude and writing, if known at all, was known only by a 
few! Therefore, he concluded that the idea of a carefully 
elaborated code of written laws coming under such cir- 
cumstances and at such a time was unthinkable. On this 
dogmatic assumption Wellhausen proceeded to erect a 
mighty fort from which to bombard the battlements of 
revealed truth. A few years after he wrote, however, 
the “Code of Hammurabi’ was discovered. Here we 
have an elaborate code of written laws, coming from the 
same part of the world in which Moses lived, and ante- 
dating the time of the Hebrew lawgiver by hundreds of 
years. 

Thus, position after position of the critics has been 
overthrown and destroyed, and they are everywhere on 
the defensive today. In Germany, the home of scep- 
ticism and criticism, as well as in England and America, 
we see the plain signs of a conservative reaction, which 
is to usher in a new era of faith and devotion to the 
Bible. 

The difficulties of the Bible, as a part of its quality of 
permanence and universality, also form an inexhaustible 
storehouse of food for faith. We said before that diffi- 
culties and mysteries are an essential part of any true 
and permanent religion, because if we could see all the 
way and fully understand everything connected with the 
religion we would leave it. The highest reach of moral 
grandeur in the entire Old Testament is that where the 
servant of God, though suffering in body and sorely be- 
reaved and perplexed, nevertheless exclaims, “Though 
He slay me, yet will I believe in Him.” It is easy to re- 
main loyal. when the sailing is clear and.smooth, but moral 

10. 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE “~~ 


grandeur is developed when we remain loyal even though 
the way is rough, uncertain and dark. This noble ele- 
ment in human character God has sought to develop, 
seemingly, by leaving some things dark in His Revelation. 

The mere fact that we cannot fully understand all that 
is in the Bible or fathom its mysteries has kept it as the 
center of interest and devotion generation after genera- 
tion. If, therefore, at this hour I had it in my power to 
clear up every mystery connected with it, and reconcile 
every alleged contradiction in it, I would leave it ab- 
solutely untouched, for the wisdom of God has planned 
it as it is, and it is sufficient. 


III—THE FACT OF THE BIBLE’S REMARKABLE UNITY IN 
DIVERSITY 


The next concrete and understandable fact to which I 
would invite your attention is the remarkable unity in 
diversity which characterizes the Bible. This fact, as I 
shall show, argues that there is but one author of the 
Book and, of necessity, that this author is God. 

We hear from many sides today this assertion: “The 
Bible is just like any other book.” And following this 
is the assertion that we need to regard it merely as 
“literature,” and to give it its place in the other literatures 
of the world. But the Bible is not “just like any other 
book.” As well say that a telescope is “just like any 
other brass!” It is not. True it is brass, but brass in a 
peculiar relation and shaped for a specific and unusual 
purpose. The man who uses up his time analyzing it, 
that he may determine its chemical composition, or who 
spends his energies in speculations concerning the half- 
effaced name of its maker, would fail to get any benefit 
from the telescope, even if he did not completely ruin 
the instrument. The telescope is not like any other brass, 

11 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


and a man who uses it in the wrong way really abuses it, 
at the same time that he denies himself a most uplifting 
and inspiring experience. He might be gazing with 
rapt vision and leaping heart upon the before unseen 
glories of the midnight heavens. The critical attitude 
toward the Bible prevents many a soul from catching 
through it the visions of eternal glory. 

Yes, the Bible is perfectly unique. There is not an- 
other book on earth'like it, nor is it like any other book. 
Indeed, it is not one book, but a library of 66 books com- 
posed by 40 different writers from all ranks of society, 
and requiring at least 1,500 years in its composition. It 
took 20 years to give the world Gibbon’s Rome; Clark’s 
Commentary required in its composition 26 years; Web- 
ster’s Dictionary, 36 years, but it required 1,500 years to 
produce the Bible; and its authors came from every walk 
of life. Shepherds, fishermen, priests, warriors, states- 
men, husbandmen, kings contributed to it. Amos was 
a vine dresser; Solomon was an illustrious king; David 
was a shepherd; Moses was a great statesman; Peter was 
an unlettered fisherman: Paul was a ripe scholar. Yet 
throughout this Book there is a marvelous unity. Though 
it was written by these different men from almost every 
walk of life, and, though it was 1,500 years in the mak- 
ing, it is, nevertheless, a harmonious whole. One spirit 
breathes through it all; one great ideal and purpose shines 
with ever-increasing brightness from its beginning to its 
end. 

Though in 66 divisions, the Bible is one Book. Why? 
There is but one answer to the question. The answer 
is because the Holy Spirit of the Living God was the 
real Author! Suppose that forty-eight men should walk 
into this church tonight. One man we will say comes 
from Maine, another from California, another from 

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FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


Georgia, and so on from each state, each bearing a block 
of marble of peculiar shape. Suppose I pile up these 
blocks in order, until I have a beautiful marble statue 
here, perfectly symmetrical and faultless in its grace. 
If then I should ask: “How did these men, who have 
never seen each other before, chisel out that beautiful 
statue?’ you would say: “That is easily explained. One 
man planned the whole statue, made the patterns, gave 
the directions, and distributed them around; and so, be- 
cause each man worked by the pattern, the work fits 
accurately when completed.’ Very well. Here is a 
Book coming from all quarters, written by men of all 
classes, scattered through a period of fifteen hundred 
years, and yet this Book is fitted together as a wondrous 
and harmonious whole. How was it done? “Holy men 
of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” 
One mind inspired the whole Book! One voice speaks 
in it all! Behind each of the writers, though making 
use in each case of their individual temperament and 
style, the Holy Spirit stood down the ages speaking 
God’s message to the needy hearts of sinful and lost men. 


“Whence but from heaven could men unskilled in arts, 
In several ages, born in several parts, 

Weave such agreeing truths? Or how or why 

Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie? 

Unasked their pains, ungrateful their advice, 
Starving their gains, and martyrdom their price.” 


The Bible is a glorious temple of truth, with its broad 
foundations in Genesis, its majestic columns rising in the 
record of patriarch, prophet and priest, its roof-tree in the 
Gospels of Jesus Christ, and its majestic dome in the 
Revelation of a New Heaven and New Earth wherein 
will dwell righteousness. The miraculous unity in di- 
versity of this Book argues conclusively to the thoughtful 

13 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


mind the oneness and divinity of its origin and, there- 
fore, its infallibility. 


IV—THE STRIKING FACT OF THE BIBLES FULFILLED 
PROPHECIES 


There is another most conclusive proof of the divine 
origin and infallibility of the Bible, and that is fulfilled 
prophecy. Prophecy is the foretelling of events before 
they happen, and only God can do that as it requires 
omniscience, and God speaks, therefore, through the 
prophets. Amos said: “Surely the Lord Jehovah will do 
nothing except He reveal His secret unto His servants 
the prophets.” (Amos 3:7.) And in the Acts of the 
Apostles it is written: “God hath spoken by the mouth of 
all His holy prophets since the world began.” (Acts 
Bert) 

God Himself, through the Book, challenges us to faith 
in it because of fulfilled prophecy. He says: “I am God, 
and there is none like Me; declaring the end from the 
beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not 
yet done.” (Isaiah 46:9-I0.) 

And even Christ based His claims to faith and obedi- 
ence upon the correctness of His prophecies. He said: 
“T tell you before it come to pass, that, when it is come 
to pass, ye may believe that 1 am He.” (John 13:19.) 

These Bible prophecies are not like the prophecies of 
the Delphic oracle, for example, where either one of two 
events would prove the prophecy, as in the answer the 
oracle made to one of the old kings that if he crossed a 
certain river with his army “it would bring about the 
destruction of a great nation.’’ But either his nation or 
that of his foes might have been meant. The Bible 
prophecies are not like that. They are specific. They are 
so explicit and definite that they all but take one’s breath 

14 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


away, and their fulfillment has been so remarkable that 
one thoughtful mind has said that “prophecy is the mold 
of history.” Listen to just a few of them, by way of 
illustration : 

Assyria, with its proud city of Nineveh, flourished in 
Zephaniah’s day, yet he prophesied its utter destruction 
by God. This prophecy was literally fulfilled, and 
Nineveh has lain in desolation for ages, her very site 
forgotten for centuries. (Zeph. 2:13-15.) 

Again, God speaking through Ezekiel prophesied not 
only destruction for ancient Tyre, but certain peculiar 
things about it that are most striking in their literal ful- 
fillment. Listen to God’s prophecy spoken through 
Ezekiel. He said: 


“Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause 
many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth 
his waves to come up. And they shall destroy the walls of 
Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her 
dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. 

And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey 
of thy merchandise: and they shall break down thy walls, 
and destroy thy pleasant houses ; and they shall lay thy stones 
and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water. 

: And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou 
shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no 
more; for I the Lord have spoken it, saith the Lord God” 
(Ezek. 26:3, 4, 12, 14). 


Here was the prophecy. Was it fulfilled? Yes, lit- 

erally, in every detail. First came Nebuchadnezzar and 
took the city and spoiled it. The old city lay in ruins. 
The remaining inhabitants moved away to an island half 
a mile from shore, and there built a new city. Then 
came Alexander the Great, who besieged the new Tyre 
built on the island. He planned to attack the city by 
building a causeway from the mainland through the half 

15 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


mile of sea to the island. To build this causeway, Alex- 
ander took the walls and towers, and timbers and the 
ruins of ancient Tyre’s palaces and literally laid them 
“in the midst of the water.” So great was the demand 
for material that the mounds of ruins from the ancient 
city and even the ‘dust’? was scraped from the rocks and 
laid in the sea! So it became literally “like the top of 
a rock... . a place to spread nets upon.” And Tyre’s 
history stands today. as a dramatic monument to the in- 
fallible truthfulness of the Bible. 

Take, again, the case of Babylon. Jeremiah and 
Isaiah alike prophesied that that mighty empire, then in 
the heyday of its glory, would be utterly destroyed. It 
would cease to exist, be forgotten, mould into dust, and 
be desolate forever. God said through Isaiah: 


“And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the 
Chaldeans’ pride, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom 
and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it 
be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the 
Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall shepherds make their 
flocks to lie down there. But wild beasts of the desert shall 
lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures ; 
and ostriches shall dwell there, and wild goats shall dance 
there. And wolves shall cry in their castles, and jackals in 
the pleasant palaces. I will also make it a possession for 
the porcupine, and pools of water, and I will sweep it with 
the besom of destruction, saith Jehovah of hosts.” (Isaiah 
13 :19-22, 14-21.) 


These prophecies have been marvelously fulfilled. 
Jeremiah prophesied about Babylon that its destruction 
would be so complete that “they shall not take of thee 
a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations.” 
(Jeremiah 51.) Mr. Rassam remarks upon the fact that 
the natives living near the site of ancient Babylon use 
the bricks for building purposes, but always burn the 

16 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


stone thus discovered for lime, which fact wonderfully 
fulfills the divine words of Jeremiah. And as to the 
literal fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, it is worthy of 
note that he knew thousands of years before our days 
that the Arabs would survive even down to modern times 
as a nomadic people, still living in tents. Furthermore, 
observers have commented again and again on the num- 
ber of wild beasts, reptiles and insect pests that abound 
among the ruins of ancient Babylon; and Rawlinson, in 
his well-known book on “EGYPT AND BABYLON” 
(page 206), says: 

“On the actual ruins of Babylon the Arabian neither 
pitches his tent nor pastures his flocks, in the first place, 
because the nitrous soil produces no pasture to tempt him; 


secondly, because an evil reputation attaches to the entire 
site, which is thought to be the haunt of evil spirits.” 


I would like to ask why have not the Rationalists and 
the infidels, whether in the church or out, who are so 
eager to disprove God’s word, gone and inhabited Baby- 
lon? God’s fulfilled prophecies on multiplied millions of 
Bible pages stand a challenge to them to prove that the 
verdict passed on Babylon is untrue! 

So I might go on for hours tracing out before you the 
prophecies of the Bible and their amazing, literal fulfill- 
ments. I might cite the case of Egypt, about which 
Ezekiel prophesied, not that it would become desolate and 
uninhabited as in the case of Tyre, Nineveh, Babylon, 
etc., but that it would become forever a subject nation, 
and soit has been. I might cite the marvelous prophecies 
of Daniel about the world empires that followed his day. 

{I might cite to you the prophecies concerning Israel, 
or, as we call them, the Jews. Quite wonderfully, every 
part of their history was foretold: their prosperity and 
greatness when they obeyed God, their decline and ex- 

17 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


pulsion from their own land, when they disobeyed Him, 
their tragic and unparalleled sufferings, persecutions and 
sorrows, and yet their miraculous preservation, their 
multiplication in numbers, wealth and power, and finally 
their restoration to their own land, and glory to them and 
all mankind through their final obedience to God when 
Christ comes back again. Already in the “Zionist move- 
ment” we are seeing enacted before our yery eyes the 
beginning of the fulfillment of the prophecies concerning 
their return to Palestine. 

Listen to but one of these ancient prophecies: In 
Deuteronomy, the 28th chapter, it is written: 

“And Jehovah will scatter thee among all peoples, from 
the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the 
earth, . . . And among these nations shalt thou find 
no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of thy foot. 

And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and 
thou shalt fear night and day and shalt have no assurance 
of thy life.’ (Deut. 28 :64-66.) 

This has been literally and tragically fulfilled. There 
is nothing in all history so pathetic and so terrible as the 
history of the Jews. Two millions were killed or starved 
to death or sold into slavery worse than death in A.D. 70. 
Over half a million more were slaughtered by the Romans 
sixty years later. Other millions have tragically perished 
in Poland, Italy, Russia and other lands. Even here in 
free, democratic America thoughtful Jews have had to 
express their apprehension for the future, in the light of 
Henry Ford’s propaganda and such movements as the 
Ku Klux Klan. No wonder that Milman says, in his 
“History of the Jews”: 

“Massacred by thousands, yet, springing up again from 
their undying stock, the Jews appear at all times and in 
all regions. Their perpetuity, their national immortality, is at 
once the most curious problem to the political inquirer; to 

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FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


the religious man a subject of profound and awful admira- 
tion.” (Page 398, Vol. 2.) 

Frederick the Great once said to his Chaplain that if 
his religion was true he ought to be able to prove it in 
one word. He demanded that he so prove it, and his 
Chaplain said: “Yes, sire, it is provable in one word— 
Israel!’ If there were no other proof of its divine origin 
and infallibility, the Bible would stand proved forever 
by its fulfilled prophecies about the Jews! 

And what shall we say about the prophecies connected 
with Jesus Christ Himself? Think, first, of the many 
prophecies about His coming to this earth, even includ- 
ing details as to place and miraculous manner of birth, 
as to His mother, the deeds of His life, the peculiar and 
most unusual incidents of His death and burial and resur- 
rection, all of which were literally and exactly fulfilled. 
And think of the prophecies that Christ Himself uttered, 
and how they have been fulfilled. Though its golden 
beauty was still sparkling before their eyes, He prophesied 
to the men of His own day that the Temple would be 
utterly destroyed, and that not one stone of it would be 
left upon another. Amazing, yet it was literally fulfilled! 
At a time when Rome was mistress of the world, He 
foresaw the break-up of her power and prophesied not 
that nations would rise against Rome, but that “nation 
shall rise against nation, and kingdom against Kingdom.” 
The political history of the world, He said, was not to 
be one Kingdom ruling all, or nations rising against that 
empire, but numbers of nations and Kingdoms, all in 
strife and warfare against each other. In the light of 
those prophecies, we can but stand in awe and wonder as 
we read in the pages of history the unending movements 
of kingdom against kingdom and nation against nation 
for these two thousand years. 

19 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


Christ prophesied the history of His church, its trials, 
sufferings and sorrows and yet its glories and its final 
victories. And all of this has been fulfilled and is being 
fulfilled before our very eyes. 

Christ and the apostle John prophesied that near the 
end of the age, the Gospel would be preached ‘“‘to every 
nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” on the face 
of the globe. (Matt. 24:12; Rev. 14:6.) At the time 
the prophecy was uttered its fulfillment seemed an im- 
possibility. Only the invention of printing and the con- 
sequent increase in the number of Bibles made it pos- 
sible. Yet the prediction was made, and Paul and other 
apostles proceeded to act as if they believed that an im- 
possibility would be accomplished. It has been accom- 
plished, and we have seen it in our day. While there 
are many thousands of other books in the world, how 
does it happen that not one of them has been translated 
into one-twentieth as many languages as the Bible? And 
how did those ancient prophets know that this would be 
the case? 

In the light of all this, may we not see the absolute 
infallibility of God’s word? And may we not know that 
Jesus spoke only the truth when He said: “Heaven and 
earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away!” 


V—-THE FACT OF THE BIBLES OWN CLAIMS CONCERNING 
ITSELF 


This leads me now to point out the fact that the Bible 
claims to be the word of God, and, therefore, it claims 
infallibility. It boldly states its own right to instruct 
and lead the children of men. I designedly bring this 
argument late in the discussion. I did not argue in the 
beginning that the Bible was the revelation of God be- 
cause it said it was. I have marshalled the facts from 

20 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


the outside first. But now, in the light of those facts, 
I make bold to introduce the Bible that it may speak for 
itself. What does it claim for itself? Almost on every 
page the claim of its divine origin and infallibility is 
either implied or asserted. To be sure, it does not elab- 
orate any formal theory of inspiration or infallibility, 
and yet inspiration and infallibility are implied from one 
end of it to the other. All through the Bible run such 
expressions as “Thus saith the Lord,” etc. This phrase, 
“Thus saith the Lord,” or its equivalent, is used in the 
Old Testament fully two thousand times. 

Allow me to give you now a few of such expressions, 
taken almost at random from among the many that might 
be quoted. 

In the case of Moses we are told that, 


“God spake these words” (Exod. 20:1). 

“And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord” (Exod. 
24:4); and in repeating them to the children of Israel he 
was able to say, “these are the words which the Lord hath 
commanded” (Ex. 35:1). 

David said, “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and 
His word was in my tongue (2 Sam. 23:2). 

Isaiah said, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for 
the Lord has spoken.” And he refers to his writings as 
the words of the Lord “at least twenty times.” 

Tsaiah said, again, “To the law and to the testimony: if 
they speak not according to this word, it is because there is 
no light in them.” (Isa. 8:20.) 

Jeremiah, over one hundred times in his writings, said, 
“The Word of the Lord came unto me.” (Jer. 1:4.) 

Ezekiel wrote: “The Word of the Lord came expressly 
unto Ezekiel.” (Ezek. 1:3.) He used such expressions 
sixty times. 

Daniel tells us he received his message in vision (Dan. 
7:1); and from the lips of Gabriel (Dan. 9:21.) 

Amos says he wrote “the words . . . which he saw 
concerning Israel,” etc. (Am. 1:1.) 

21 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


John says what he writes is “the Revelation of Jesus 
Christ, which God gave unto him.” (Rev. 1:1.) 

When Jeremiah was first inspired he seemed for the 
moment quite unconscious of the fact, so that God had 
actually to tell Him—‘Behold, I have put My words in thy 
mouth.” (Jer. 1:9.) 

Peter said, “For the prophecy came not in old time by 
the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Pet. 1:21.) 

Paul said, “For this cause also thank we God without 
ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which 
ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but 
as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh 
also in you that believe.’ (1 Thes. 2:13.) And the great 
classical text still stands: 

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profit- 
able for doctrine for reproof, for correction, for instruction 
in righteousness.” (2 Tim. 3:16.) 


These new Testament utterances concerning the in- 
spiration and infallibility of scripture refer, for the most 
part, to the old Testament, and thus declare its full in- 
Spiration and authority. But the New Testament makes 
for itself the same claim. The Gospels are full of in- 
ternal claims to be the inspired record of the Son of God 
when He was in the flesh. The Book of Acts is avowedly 
the history of the Holy Spirit’s work in and through the 
early churches. The book of Revelation explicitly claims 
to be just what its name implies, a real revelation from 
God. That leaves, then, only the epistles to be accounted 
for. Fourteen of these epistles are from the pen of Paul. 
He declares explicitly and repeatedly that what he writes 
is not of man but of God, and that it is to be received 
“not as the word of man, but, as it is in truth, the Word 
of God.” (1 Thes. 2:13.) To the Galatians he wrote: 
“But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was 
preached of me is not after man. For I neither received 

22 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation 
of Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1:11-12.) And so again 
and again he repeated. 

What he testifies of his own writings, Paul equally 
affirms of the writings of the other apostles. In his letter 
to the Ephesians he says truth not heretofore known has 
now been revealed to the “holy apostles and prophets by 
the Spirit.’ (Eph. 3:5.) In this he is in accord with 
the Son of God, who assured these very apostles that 
when they should speak (and therefore when they should 
write) it would not be themselves, but, as he said, “the 
Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.” (Matt. 
10:20. ) 

Without hesitation it may be said the Apostle Paul 
claims full inspiration for the writings of Peter, James, 
John and Jude as made by the Spirit in and to them. 
The Apostle Peter, speaking not only for himself, but in 
the name of the other apostles, gives an added testimony 
to the inspiration of Paul’s epistles. He says: “Even as 
our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom 
given unto him, hath written unto you; as also in all his 
epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are 
some things hard to be understood, which they that are 
unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other 
scriptures, unto their own destruction.” (2 Pet. 3:15, 16.) 

This is an unequivocal declaration by Peter that the 
writings of Paul are to be received upon the same 
authority as “the other Scriptures” of Israel; and it is 
this same Apostle Peter who, speaking of the inspiration 
of the Old Testament, says the men who wrote it “spake 
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Pet. 1:21.) 
It is he who also declares that the spirit of Christ was in 
them as the source and inspiration of their testimony, 
leading them to write “beforehand the sufferings of 

23 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


Christ, and the glory that should follow.” (1 Pet. 1:11.) 

Thus, it is plain that the entire New Testament claims 
to be the inspired and infallible Word of God. 

Jesus Christ has left His record as to His faith in the 
Bible as the infallible Word of God. He prayed the 
Father and said: ‘“Sanctify them through thy truth; thy 
Word is truth.’ He was constantly speaking of “the 
scriptures,’ and He said “the Scriptures cannot be 
broken.” Indeed He proclaimed Himself to be the theme 
of all scriptures. On the walk to Emmaus and in the 
upper room at Jerusalem He announces that He Himself 
is the unique key to the understanding of the Bible, and 
there we may well let the matter rest. We can only ex- 
claim, like that distressed disciple of old, ““Lord, to whom 
shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” 
(Compare Luke 24:13-35 and 36-49.) 

Here, then, is the Bible’s testimony concerning itself. 
The old Book comes into court with a good reputation as 
it makes these claims for itself. In the light of the won- 
derful record of its influence and its power, which I have 
tried to bring to your attention, I wish to ask who will 
dare to impeach it? Who will dare rise up in the face 
of this noble record and say that this old Book is a liar? 


VI—THE FACT OF THE BIBLE’S SELF-AUTHENTICATING 
AUTHORITY 


If, now, the Bible is truly the Word of God, then it 
is infallible and should be received as a final self-authen- 
ticating authority. There must be in every field of human 
activity and interest some court of last appeal. It is true 
in the scientific world. Though the human consciousness 
continues to play a great part, and the activity of the 
human mind in the discovery, analysis and classification 
of new facts goes forward constantly in the science of 

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FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


mathematics and in every other science, there are, never- 
theless, final and axiomatic principles and truths which 
can never be transcended and which stand, therefore, as 
ultimate authority. A straight line is forever the short- 
est distance between two points and twice two will make 
four to the end of time. 

In medicine the need of authority exists. While the 
different schools of medicine vary among themselves and 
are constantly developing and perfecting their science, 
there are, nevertheless, great general principles of heal- 
ing and established facts underlying them all. While the 
individual consciousness and skill of a given doctor have 
a large room for play, his talents are, nevertheless, cir- 
cumscribed by the things that are established, and that 
are true forever. Let every doctor begin practicing 
medicine according to his own whim and impulse, and 
the undertaker and manufacturer of tombstones would 
become speedily the most prosperous citizens in the com- 
munity! 

In the law there must be a seat of final authority and 
a court of last appeal. While the law is a science that 
is progressing, still, there are, nevertheless, a group of 
principles and truths that are established and that are 
absolutely final. 

The fundamental axioms of the law—the axioms of 
justice, equity and righteousness in the relationships be- 
tween man and his fellows—are irrefutable and un- 
changeable. The consciousness of the individual does 
not create these authoritative standards and principles. 
The individual consciousness merely recognizes them as 
true when they are presented, and must act upon them 
in obedience unless disaster is to follow. 

Upon this truth of authority, therefore, the whole vast 
structure of modern civilization is builded. 

25 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY. 


Dare anyone say, then, that in the field of religion, 
where man’s most vital interests for both time and eter- 
nity lie, there is no dependable authority, no infal- 
lible guide? Shall the highest interests of our na- 
tures to be left to caprice and chance? Are we to 
grope forever in darkness and uncertainty? Are there 
no fixed standards? No solid and enduring ground on 
which we can build our individual lives, establish our 
homes, order our society and found our hopes of 
Heaven? Is each one of us to be left to believe one 
thing one day—and that thing perhaps different from 
everything our neighbors are believing,—and another 
thing tomorrow, and another thing the next day, and 
so on and onp 

The modernists and the rationalists exalt the indi- 
vidual consciousness as the seat of final authority. But 
this only means that God has been dethroned and man 
put in His place. 

Now, my friends, let us look at it frankly and honestly. 
We do not wish to be offensive, but we must be loyal to 
the truth, and the truth is that this whole modern 
philosophy, when it is logically followed out, leads in- 
evitably not only to atheism but also to anarchy! 

A man who becomes a law unto himself and declares 
that he will do only what he thinks is right and what he 
wishes to do we call an anarchist. With sober hearts and 
earnest minds we need to face the question whether this 
truth does not apply also to the man in the religious 
world who says the same thing. If the consciousness 
of the individual is the seat of authority and the court 
of final appeal, then we have anarchy in the religious 
world. Every man will be a law unto himself. Conflict- 
ing authorities mean that there is no authority. 

26 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


If it is argued that the Bible is fallible in part, then 
the question arises: “What part is fallible and what 
part is infallible? What part is true and what part is 
false? And who is to be the judge?’ Is it not evi- 
dent that such a contention leads to absolute religious 
anarchy ?—that it makes every man a law unto himself? 
If we do not accept the Bible as authority, then we have 
to accept our own individual judgment as the final 
authority, or the judgment of some other man, expressed 
in a book or otherwise, and we are still utterly at sea; 
we still have no real authority: For, look you, one man 
may accept his own judgment as authoritative or the 
judgment of some other man or book, but you and I 
may not accept his conclusions or the conclusions of the 
other man or book at all. And so it comes down to it 
that we have no binding authority: that is to say, we 
have anarchy. 

Is it not perfectly evident, my friends, that we must 
have some authority outside of ourselves, some absolute 
and unchanging standard, some court of final appeal to 
which all must submit, or there can only be confusion 
worse confounded in all matters of religion? 

The whole matter of religious authority reduces itself 
to the question whether the infinitely holy and wise God 
has a right to rule His own world and His finite chil- 
dren. We must believe that He has. God’s righteous 
will, then, is the ultimate source of authority in the 
religious world, and that will is revealed in the Bible. 
In this Book, either explicitly stated or clearly implied, 
there is every truth, precept and principle that the indi- 
vidual or the race can ever need. 

“But,” it is asked, “is there then to be no new truth? 
No progress in thought?’ And we answer: Yes, there 
is to be constant progress in thought, but this is to come 

27 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


because the individual will learn better to think God’s 
thoughts after Him! There is to be more and more 
new truth, but it is to be new truth that breaks out of 
the old Word. That Word is ‘forever established in 
Heaven,” and we are not to add to it or take from it 
one jot or tittle. The heart of it is One “in whom there 
is no variableness nor shadow cast by the turning.” One 
who is “‘the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Man’s 
chief glory is in learning of Him, and not in trying to 
surpass Him nor supplant Him with our feeble finite 
thoughts. New truth will come, but it will come burst- 
ing out of the eternal and infallible Word. The im- 
provement must be in man and not in the Word. The 
Holy Spirit has been given us to lead us into all the 
truth, and He will not fail us if in prayer and humility 
we look to Him for guidance. The enlightening of the 
individual mind and the deepening of its power of per- 
ception merely enables the mind to enter into the deeper 
treasures that lie forever at the golden heart of Truth. 
The supreme need of this age is that we shall reestablish 
respect for authority everywhere, and that can come 
only through reestablishing respect for the Bible as 
God’s Word. 


INFLUENCE ON THE INDIVIDUAL 


Now the striking thing is that the Bible actually exerts 
a vital and authoritative influence over men. It has a 
mystical power through which God speaks to men in a 
way that is mentally illuminating, inspiring, and to the 
individual, final and infallible. Let me quote to you, in 
this connection, no less a man than Hon. Winston 
Churchill, the great English statesman. Beyond any 
question he is one of the most practical men and one of 
the most gigantic minds of today, but in his book on 

28 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


the great war,—“The World Crisis of 1914-1918,”’— 
which I have just been reading with profound interest, 
and which many competent critics have declared the 
greatest of the books on the war, I found Mr. Churchill 
relating a striking incident. In speaking of the tremen- 
dous sense of responsibility which came upon him when 
he was selected to serve as the First Lord of the Ad- 
miralty at the outbreak of the World War, and of his 
uncertainty and apprehension about assuming such colos- 
sal responsibilities in the face of the known strength 
of Germany and her vast preparations for war, Mr. 
Churchill relates an experience he had with the Bible. 
He says: 

“That night when I went to bed, I saw a large Bible 
lying on a table in my bedroom. My mind was dom- 
inated by the news I had received of the complete change 
in my station, and of the task entrusted to me. I thought 
of the peril of Britain,—peace-loving, unthinking, little 
prepared—of her power and virtue, and of her mission 
of good sense and fair play. I thought of mighty Ger- 
many, towering up in the splendor of her Imperial state 
and delving down, in her profound, cold, patient, ruth- 
less calculations. I thought of the army corps I had 
watched tramp past, wave after wave of valiant man- 
hood, at the Breslau maneuvers in 1907; of the thou- 
sands of strong horses dragging cannon and great 
howitzers up the ridges and along the roads around 
Wurzburg in 1910. I thought of German education 
and thoroughness and all that their triumphs in science 
and philosophy implied. I thought of the sudden and 
successful wars by which her power had been set up.” 

Then, with these thoughts in his mind he turned to 
the Bible, without any plan of reading any particular 
passage, and it opened to a passage that greatly cheered 

29 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


and strengthened his heart, and encouraged him to go 
forward with his new duties, and responsibilities. He 
says: 

“T opened the Book at random, and in the gth chap- 
ter of Deuteronomy, I read: 


“Hear O Israel; Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, 
to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, 
cities great and fenced up to heaven, A people great and 
tall, the children of the Anakim, whom thou knowest and 
of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the 
children of Anak! Understand therefore this day, that the 
Lord thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a con- 
suming fire, he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them 
down before they face; so shalt thou drive them out, and 
destroy them quickly, as the Lord hath said unto thee. 
Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the Lord thy God 
hath cast them out from before thee, saying: For my right- 
eousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land; 
but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive 
them out from before thee. Not for thy righteousness, nor 
for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess 
their land, but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord 
thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that 
he may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy 
fathers.” (Deut. 9:1-5.) 


This message from God’s word did thus infallibly 
guide that great statesman in the hour of his supreme 
need. 


THE BIBLES MORAL POWER 


The Bible has also proved itself the infallible word 
of God to a great multitude of individuals in the field 
of morals and religion. The avowed purpose of the 
Bible is to point the way to salvation, and the fact that 
it does this proves that it is infallible and divine. 

We have in the membership of this church young 

30 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


men whom I have baptized during this pastorate, some 
of whom have come from lives of crime and shame and 
have been made over into lives of purity, honesty, and 
noble service. They delight in nothing more than to 
quote from the Bible and tell how its truths saved them, 
and how its precepts guide and keep them in the way. 

Some of you have doubtless seen that picture which 
sets forth the purifying and uplifting influence of the 
Bible on the individual character. The painting \s 
entitled “The entrance of Thy Word Giveth Light.” 
The artist had pictured the interior of a humble and 
poverty-stricken home. Upon the bed in the corner 
lay a young man. Evidently he had been a youth of 
right impulses and noble purpose, though his fine face 
was now marred sadly by the deep lines of sin. The 
young man lay upon the bed in the early morning after 
a night of drunkenness and debauchery. Beside him 
sat the venerable old mother of the wayward lad. A 
tear was upon her wrinkled cheek; the old family Bible 
was open upon her knee, and with her drawn, crooked 
‘finger she was tracing laboriously and reading the words 
of counsel and truth from the Book. And with marvel- 
ous spiritual insight and skill the artist had managed 
to suggest the dawn of hope upon the young man’s face. 
Realizing his own weakness and his own inability to 
stand amidst the temptations of human life—convinced 
at last of his own moral impotence—there came to his 
penitent soul the revelation that there was another 
power, a Beneficent and Divine Power, that would 
strengthen his weak will and correct the sad abuses of 
his life, and so the entrance of God’s word gave him 
light. That picture is true, and that experience has 
been repeated, in essence, many million times upon our 
earth. Because, therefore, of the fruit that this blessed 

31 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


old Book has borne we know that it is truth, and that 
it points the way to everlasting life. 

Talk about the divine origin and infallibility of the 
Bible! Are not such experiences final and conclusive 
as to this question? I submit that they are. So far as 
the question of infallibility is concerned, | bear my 
testimony that the Bible has been infallible for me, 
because it has been the greatest purifying, guiding, and 
inspiring power in my life. It has never failed me. 
Churchill found it so in his life, and a great multitude 
of others have found it so in their lives. Coleridge, the 
poet, said that he knew the Bible was true because “it 
found him at a deeper depth than any other book.” 
Gladstone called the Bible “the impregnable Rock of 
Holy Scripture,’ and acknowledged that he shaped his 
life by its teachings. Daniel Webster paid his tribute 
to the influence of the Bible upon his life and character, 
and he admonished all men to accept it and follow it. 
He said: 


“T believe that the Bible is to be understood and received 
in the plain and obvious meaning of its passages; for I can- 
not persuade myself that a book intended for the instruction 
and conversion of the whole world should cover its true 
meaning in any such mystery, and doubt none but critics 
and philosophers can discover it. If we abide by the princi- 
ples taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering 
and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instruc- 
tions and authority no man can tell how sudden a catas- 
trophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound 
obscurity.” 


I wish to add to these views of practical men of the 
world the following words from one of humanity’s great- 
est scholars, the late Dr. James Orr, of the Free Church 
College of Glasgow. In speaking of the Bible, Dr. Orr 
says that it has a “saving and sanctifying power that 

32 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


wield the best proof of its divine origin.”’ In his great 
book, on ‘The Problem of the Old Testament,” he then 
says further: 

“The Bible has a character and power of impression which 
belong to it as a living Book. Who, coming to this sacred 
Book with a sincere desire to know God’s will for the direc- 
tion of His life, will say that he cannot find it? Who desir- 
ing to be instructed in the way of salvation ‘through faith 
which is in Christ Jesus’ will consult its pages and say it is 
not made plain to him? Who, coming to it for equipment 
of his spiritual life, will say that there are still needs 
of that life which are unprovided for? Who, seeking 
direction in the way of life everlasting, can doubt that, if 
he faithfully obeys its teachings he will reach that goal? 
The Scripture fulfills the ends for which it was given; no 
higher proof of its inspiration can be demanded.” 


These are noble and significant words which I have 
quoted from some of the great minds and hearts of 
earth, and they all argue the divine origin and in- 
fallibility of the Bible as God’s word. 


AUTHORITATIVE PREACHING 


A new understanding and a practical application of 
this old truth will bring renewed power to the modern 
pulpit and the church today. Why is it that with greater 
wealth, enlightenment and numbers than ever before 
in Christianity’s history many of her churches, especially 
in our cities and centers of culture, are declining? The 
reason is not far to seek. A question mark concerning 
_ Christ and the Bible has gotten into many pulpits. Its 
_ poisonous roots reach down through the soil of uncer- 
tainty to the subsoil of doubt, and even into the dark, 
deadly mold of infidelity itself. Its fruits show in the 
preaching of the day. The trumpet is giving “an un- 
certain sound’ and consequently few are “preparing 

33 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


themselves for the battle.” The silly sensationalismn, 
the “ragtime” religion that is seen in many of our 
churches, and the puny little essays that are delivered 
from many of our pulpits, and dignified through courtesy 
with the name of “sermons,” are pitiful in comparison 
with the grand preaching of the past, which gave forth 
a sure note of warning and promise by the very author- 
ity of God Himself, speaking through His Holy Word. 

The rejection of authority in the civil state, in the 
home, in social life, and in the church, is the greatest 
and most menacing danger of today. Half of the world 
has been already plunged into anarchy, and the other 
half seems trembling upon the brink of that dreadful 
precipice, because the truth of authority has been re- 
jected by the superficial thinking of the times. In the 
home, parental authority has waned, and the result is 
the wreck and ruin which is falling already upon the 
younger generations, which is the theme of magazine 
writers the world over, and the distress of thoughtful 
minds everywhere. In society the old-fashioned author- 
ity of decent standards of dress and conduct has been 
partly rejected, and the result is a reign of sensuality 
and the clogging of our divorce courts with the tragic 
tales of violated marriage vows, the setting adrift of 
little children with no hand to guide them upon the 
storm-tossed seas of human life, and the utter disrup- 
tion of multitudes of American homes. And all of this 
has come about because of loss of faith in the Bible as 
God’s infallible and authoritative Word. 

I hope that my opponent realizes that a solemn re- 
sponsibility rests upon him in this debate because, at 
last, these questions are the most important questions 
that are now engaging the attention of mankind. 
The supreme religious issue of this age is: do we be- 

34 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


jieve God? Not do we believe about God. Every man 
who has any capacity for thought must believe some- 
thing about some sort of God. The real issue of to- 
day is: do we believe God? A great multitude of de- 
vout and faithful souls the round world over hold that 
God has spoken to man in this venerable Book, and we 
believe God and what He says to us in the Book, and 
we believe, too, that the supreme strategy of the devil, 
whom Christ recognized as His arch enemy, centers to- 
day in his subtle attack upon the Bible. The devil’s 
plan from the beginning has been to discount and dis- 
credit God’s word. It is recorded here in Genesis that 
when the tempter came to our first mother, “he said 
unto the woman: yea, hath God said?” The very first 
step in the seductive sophistries of the devil, therefore, 
was to raise a question in the human mind concerning 
God’s word. Then his next step was to deny God’s 
word. When the woman told him that they were per- 
mitted to eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden 
except the fruit of the tree which was in the midst of 
the garden, for, said she “God hath said: ye shall not 
eat of it; neither shall ye touch it lest ye die,” the devil 
made his master stroke. It is recorded here, “and the 
serpent said unto the woman: ye shall not surely die, 
for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then 
your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, know- 
ing good and evil.” (Gen. 3:1-5.) 

First the devil raises a question as to whether God 
has really spoken—whether He has given us His word, 
and then he goes a step further and boldly denies God’s 
word and declares God to be a liar. And that, my 
friends, is what he is still doing; and all of the sin and 
the sorrow, the suffering and the shame, that have come 
upon mankind have fallen upon the race because they 

35 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


have believed the devil’s lies rather than God’s word. 
Let us beware, those of us who lead the people, lest in 
these latter times we ourselves allow ourselves to be 
deceived by the adversary and to fulfill what Paul said: 
“And for this cause God shall send them strong de- 
lusion, that they should believe a lie.” (2 Thess. 2:11.) 


FAITH AND SPIRITUAL VISION 


There are but one or two other practical things that 
I need to say in this connection. In establishing the 
affirmative of this debate, I do not have to prove that 
the Bible is fully understandable down to its minutest 
detail. I have already pointed out that there are some 
difficulties, some mysteries and some seeming contra- 
dictions in the Book, but I showed that these difficulties 
have probably been left in the Bible purposely in the 
wisdom of God, as a perpetual stimulus to interest, and 
a constant challenge to faith! We should not allow 
these few minor difficulties, however, to decide our 
judgment about the Bible. In fairness, we must look 
at it as a whole. The question is: “Resolved that 
the Bible (the united whole) is the Infallible Word of 
God.” 

Again, in establishing the affirmative in this debate, 
I do not have to prove that the Bible is infallible 
to all men. I have shown that it is infallible to 
many—indeed, to all who will accept it; but, as 
with any other valuable gift, it must be accepted be- 
fore it can be enjoyed. Now, as with any other gift, 
faith is the way by which we must accept the Bible, 
because of the undeniable and self-evident truth that 
spiritual things are spiritually discerned, just as physical 
things are physically discerned. I can discern the pul- 

36 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


pit here only by looking at it with my physical eyes. I 
can determine that it is smooth only by running my 
physical hand over it. Likewise, it is true that there 
must be a spiritual eye in order to behold spiritual 
beauty and truth. Those who, through lack of faith, 
have no spiritual vision, and therefore do not accept the 
Bible, are like a blind man who at mid-day declares that 
the sun is not shining! The Bible “worketh effectually 
(only) in those that believe,” but when there is the small- 
est degree of humility, of the spirit of teachableness, 
and of vital faith, it becomes the very word of God and 
an infallible guide to all who thus accept it! 

Our first business, therefore, is to seek the leading of 
God’s spirit that we may approach it in such a way as 
really to reach its beautiful and saving truth. It is not 
the proud and egotistical spirit of the critic, who comes 
to the Bible with an attitude of superior wisdom and 
condescension, but, rather, the humble and teachable 
soul who will find its richest treasures. Its message is 
to the heart and conscience as well as to the intellect of 
man, and faith is the open sesame by which we enter in. 

The Bible is not an iron safe that can be opened only 
by some key which we are strong enough to forge or 
some combination that we are shrewd enough to figure 
out. The Bible is rather a beautiful flower which can- 
not be forced open, but which will open of itself in the 
sunlight of faith and love, and give forth a beauty and 
sweetness that are divine. We need, above all things 
else today, that warmth of appreciative atmosphere and 
of humble devotion which will cause its deeper spiritual 
beauties to unfold for us, and to exhale the rare perfume 
which so sweetened the lives of those in the generations 
that are gone. 

37 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


GOOD FRUITS 


And surely its fruitage has been blessed down all the 
years! Queen Victoria was once asked the secret of the 
greatness of the British Empire. She lifted a Bible from 
her table, opened it on her out-stretched hand and said: 
qaerceitt is!” 

Whatever else anyone may think about Him, there 1s 
one principle that Jesus of Nazareth laid down which 
cannot be denied by any man. It is the principle that 
a good tree bringeth forth good fruit and an evil tree 
bringeth forth evil fruit. ‘Wherefore,’ said He, “by 
their fruits ye may judge them.” Judged by this simple, 
safe, practical standard, what of the Bible? We know 
it is true and good because its fruits have been right- 
eousness and truth and holiness down all the years. 

Think what this old Book has done for our modern 
society. It has secured the acceptance of those principles 
and ideals which heathenism ignored and rejected, as, 
for example, the importance of the individual; the law 
of mutual love; the sacredness of human life, and the 
need for identity between belief and practice, or the doc- 
trine of internal holiness. It has liberated womanhood 
and glorified childhood. It has taught the nations the 
value of monogamy, the sacredness of the marriage vow, 
the religious equality of the sexes and the sanctity of the 
home as the foundation unit in the organization of en- 
lightened society. These and other forces of wisdom, 
purity and progress have their fountain-head in the 
Bible! 

And particularly are these considerations applicable to 
our own country. The very foundations of the Ameri- 
can Republic were laid down upon the open Bible. The 
most significant fact, at last, in the history of our coun- 

38 


. FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


try is the fact that the Plymouth Fathers, before ever 
they left the Mayflower and set foot upon these wild 
shores, opened the Bible in the cabin of the ship and 
drew up the first charter for their colony in the light of 
its teachings. The foundation stones in this country’s 
greatness were not laid by men who doubted the Bible, 
who desecrated the Lord’s day, and who neglected 
the church, or by women who were more regular in at- 
tendance on the playhouses than they were on the serv- 
ices of the sanctuary, who knew more about [bsen than 
they did about God’s word, who wore their complexions 
in the bureau drawer, who were past masters in the 
tango, the turkey-trot, and the grizzly-grapple, and who 
preferred to mother a mongrel puppy rather than a coo- 
ing baby! No, the greatness of our country was founded 
by men and women who held to the old faith, who lived 
lives of usefulness and service, who walked in the light 
of God’s law, whose sorrows were comforted by the 
truths of His word, and whose hopes of Heaven were 
the main-stay and anchorage of their souls! 

Wendell Phillips once eloquently exclaimed: ‘The 
answer to the Shasta is India; the answer to Confucian- 
ism is China; the answer to the Koran is Turkey; the 
answer to the Bible is Christian America!” 

Because, therefore, of the fact of its miraculous pres- 
ervation and its increase, the fact of its unique uni- 
versality, the fact of its remarkable unity in diversity, 
the marvelous fact of its fulfilled prophesies, the fact of 
the overwhelming claims it makes for itself, and finally, 
the fact of its self-authenticating authority and its power 
over the individual and the race, I claim that it is demon- 
strated and proven, that this book 1s divine in its origin 
and infallible in its content. 


39 


II 
REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


I want to express my admiration for the adroit man- 
ner in which my opponent has handled his side of the 
question. I confess to a degree of distress, however, 
over the autobiographical parts of his address, particu- 
larly the portion where he referred to his early predilec- 
tion for prevarication, and his disappointment as a lad 
in not finding a prohibition against lying among the Ten 
Commandments. It recalled to my mind the story of the 
pious old Quaker who had a worldly minded brother 
who greatly burdened and distressed him. This brother 
was given to such exaggeration that it got sometimes 
into gross prevarication. On one occasion he had ex- 
ceeded all bounds. The older brother had caught him 
in glaring misstatements, and he said to him: “Jona- 
than, I do not desire to deal harshly with thee, but, 
Jonathan, if the Governor of Pennsylvania should say 
to me: ‘Bring me hither the greatest liar in the State 
of Pennsylvania’ I would come unto thee and say: ‘Jona- 
than, the Governor hath need of thee!” I will not say 
that my opponent has deliberately misstated the truth 
about the Bible in those alleged contradictions which 
he quoted. Nor did he actually call the Bible a liar. 
Like the old Quaker, he put it in a little more diplomatic 
language, but it amounts at last to about the same thing. 
I prefer to believe that he is just honestly mistaken about 
these things. 

I confess to some personal disappointment over his 
presentation. I am loath to believe that my opponent is 
- one who finds more enjoyment in the companionship of 
40) 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


pale and sickly doubt than in that of strong faith and 
robust affirmation, or that he is one who is only happy 
when stumbling into some blind alley of alleged Scrip- 
ture contradiction, or one who prefers to pick out the 
spots upon the sun rather than to see its full-orbed glory 
at noonday. 


SEEING ARIGHT 


I am very sure that my opponent does not handle the 
other important matters of life as he handles the Bible. 
I am sure that he doesn’t deal in that way, for example, 
with Mrs. Potter. At least I know that I cannot so deal 
with Mrs. Straton. If I should follow the policy of 
trying to find the flaws in the wife’s character, if there 
are any, if I should come to her constantly and say: 
“Now this is wrong, and that is wrong with you,” and 
“what on earth did you do that for?” etc., etc., I know 
that there would be trouble in my household. Nothing 
gives forth its best under the spirit of criticism and mere 
fault-finding, and so far as the wife is concerned, I see 
only the nobility of character and the wonderful charm 
and beauty which are an increasing joy and delight to 
me as the years come and go. 

And is not that the proper attitude to take toward the 
Bible? Who in looking at a great impressionist pic- 
ture would single out a particular lump of paint or a 
place where the weave of the canvas perhaps showed 
through the pigment, and judge the entire picture by 
that? The Bible, as already remarked, is a unity, and 
we need to look at it as a whole; and, viewed as a whole, 
my contention is that the claim is established that it is 
the infallible word of God. If not, then we have no 
guide and no fixed standards to which all must submit, 
that is to say, once more we have anarchy! If the Bible 

41 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


is true and infallible only in spots, then once more I 
ask who is to pick out the good spots? If one man has 
the right to tear from the Bible the pages telling of the 
Virgin Birth of our Lord, and if another has the right 
to tear out the pages teaching the transcendence and real 
personality of a living God, and if another has the right 
to tear out the pages containing the record of the bodily 
resurrection of Jesus, and if another has the right to tear 
out the pages that teach the inspiration and authority of 
the Book, and if another has the right to reject bap- 
tism, and another has the right to throw overboard the 
teaching about divorce and the substitutionary atone- 
ment, and if another has the right to reject the miracles 
and the full deity of our Lord, then have not I the right, 
if I so desire, to tear out the pages carrying the ten com- 
mandments and satisfy the lusts of the flesh, and do 
otherwise according to my own sweet will? 

If we are to say that the Bible is not infallible, then 
I ask again, who is to be the judge between the infallible 
and fallible parts of it? 

I want to point out that my honorable opponent has 
not answered one single one of the tremendous facts 
that I presented in my opening argument. He has only 
regaled us with a lot of the old stock objections and 
arguments of scepticism and unbelief. 


ALLEGED CONTRADICTIONS 


If time permitted, it would be very easy to answer 
every alleged contradiction and every supposed error 
which my opponent has undertaken to point out. I will 
have to hope that all who are really interested will take 
the time after this meeting to look up these matters in 
any good Bible dictionary or commentary, or to consult 
some competent Bible student. In the meantime, I will 

42 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


have to content myself with calling attention to only a 
few of these alleged errors. 

Take, for example, what he said about the supposed 
contradiction concerning the inscription on Christ’s 
cross. There is no contradiction at all. The Scripture 
states that the inscription was written in three languages: 
Latin, Greek and Hebrew. It would be, therefore, far 
more accurate to speak of the “inscriptions” rather than 
the inscription. 

Here they are: 


Matthew says: “This is Jesus..... King of the Jews’ 
Mark says: “...... Peete tates The King of the Jews” 
Mucessayss) LMS isiish elu, the King of the Jews” 


John says: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews’ 

Total—“This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the 
Jews.” 

Evidently, then, the Holy Spirit, in inspiring the Gos- 
pel writers, was pleased to lead one evangelist to quote 
from the Latin, a second from the Greek, a third from 
the Hebrew, while a fourth was led by the same Spirit 
to give the substance of the whole; and this is exactly 
in line with what we find throughout the Gospels in 
other connections. A full view of Christ and His teach- 
ings can only be obtained by taking the four Gospel ac- 
counts together, as Matthew views Christ from the 
standpoint of a King, Mark from the standpoint of a 
servant, Luke from the standpoint of the Son of Man, 
and John from the standpoint of the Son of God. 

So far from these alleged inconsistencies proving the 
untrustworthiness of the Bible, they prove the exact 
opposite. It is a well-known fact in all human testi- 
mony that different witnesses see different views of the 
same thing. In giving an account of an incident often 
statements seem to differ in surface detail, and yet they 

43 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


are in absolute accord as to the essential fact. If they 
agreed in minute detail, it would arouse suspicions of 
collusion and, therefore, possibly of designed deception. 

Secular literature and history are full of illustrations 
of this truth. There is considerable difference among 
historians, for example, as to just when the battle of 
Waterloo began. The Duke of Wellington, the victor 
in the fight, declared that no man could tell when the 
battle commenced. One historian says that it started 
at eleven o'clock, and another declares that it began at’ 
twelve o'clock; but shall we decide because of these dif- 
ferences among witnesses that no battle was fought at 
all? I stood during the past Summer on the great mound 
of earth at the center of the Waterloo battlefield, which 
has been erected as a monument to commemorate the 
battle, and as the details of the tremendous contest were 
explained to me by a competent military man, I knew 
that a world-changing event had occurred on that spot, 
regardless of differences over minute details in it. 

Let me give you another illustration of seeming con- 
tradiction from secular literature: In Winslow’s “Journal 
of Plymouth Plantation” there is a statement about a 
ship which is alleged to have been sent out by “Master 
Thomas Weston”; but Bradford, in his narrative of the 
matter, mentions it as sent by “Mr. Weston and another 
man.’ Both were right, and each narrator simply gave 
the account of the matter at the point where it made 
most emphasis on his own mind. John Adams, in his 
letters, tells the story of the daughter of Otis about her 
father’s destruction of his own manuscripts. In one 
letter she says: “In one of his unhappy moments he com- 
mitted them all to the flames,” yet in the second letter 
she says: “He was several days in doing it.” Now, this 
looks like a flat contradiction, and would be so regarded 

44 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


if we employed the methods adopted by the sceptics and 
destructive critics in connection with the narratives of 
the Bible. A clearer understanding, however, of the 
conditions will make plain her meaning. She meant that 
for several days her father was in a melancholy and 
pessimistic mood in regard to his literary work as set 
forth in his manuscripts, and finally, as a climax to this 
spirit of melancholy, “in one of his unhappy moments 
he committed them all to the flames.” 

So, if we had a full understanding of all the condi- 
tions of life and the circumstances under which the 
several narratives in the Bible were recorded, we would 
doubtless find that many of these difficulties would dis- 
appear. Those of us who hold to the infallibility of the 
Bible believe that the original manuscripts were ab- 
solutely accurate. No man would question the possi- 
bility of minor errors through copyists slipping in, how- 
ever, and as I said in my opening speech, it seems evi- 
dent that God may even have permitted some such diffi- 
culties to enter, to hold the interest of the world in the 
Book through all the ages, and in order to challenge 
and stimulate faith. If everything in the Bible was 
absolutely plain and simple we would have no faith in 
connection with it, but would walk by sight and not by 
faith. Many of the alleged contradictions and mistakes, 
however, are either misquotations by those who allege 
the mistakes, or are palpable strainings of interpretation. 

My opponent thinks, for example, that Romans 2 :11— 
“For there is no respect of persons with God’—contra- 
dicts Romans 9:13—“As it is written, Jacob have I 
loved, but Esau have I hated.” This is due to a mis- 
understanding of the meaning of the words. When 
the Bible states that God is no respecter of persons it 
means that God does not “kotow” to any individual be- 

45 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


cause of his wealth, position or eminence, but treats 
all men with equal justice and fairness. 

Or, take again, what was said about the hare chewing 
the cud. It is almost laughably apparent that the Bible 
did not have in mind the American hare or jack-rabbit 
in this case, and it has been scientifically shown that the 
hare found in Palestine today uses his incisors in masti- 
cation, that he chews his food twice. But it is by no 
means certain exactly what animals are meant in the 
Levitical law by “hare” and “coney.’”’ In one connection 
in Hebrews the coney seems to be an animal with coarse 
and porsine-like hair which would explain the interdic- 
tion of his flesh for food purposes. 

My opponent said that the same mistake is made in 
the Bible in connection with grasshoppers, locusts and 
crickets, which are spoken of as going on all fours, when 
they have six legs. But while it is true that the Palestin- 
ian locust has six legs, it walks on only the four forward 
legs, the hinder and longer legs being used only for 
springing. The passage to which my opponent refers 
guillotines his argument at a stroke. It is Leviticus 
11:21, and reads as follows: “Every flying, creeping 
thing that goeth upon its fours, which has legs above 
its feet (or fours) to leap withal upon the face of the 
ground,” 

It is well known also that the ancient Hebrews spoke 
of any animal that did not walk upright as going “on 
all fours.” Think, too, of the utter incongruity of put- 
ting over against the moral grandeur of God as pictured 
in the Bible and the age-long influence of the old Book, 
a question about a grasshopper’s legs! 

And what shall be said of my opponent’s confusion 
in the case of Michal, the daughter of Saul, and the 
sometime wife of David? He says that at one place 

46 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


the book of Samuel says that Michal never had children, 
but that at another it is stated she had borne five sons to 
Adriel, but this shows a lack of knowledge of the text 
of 2 Samuel 21:8 which*says: “The five sons of Michal, 
the daughter of Saul, which she brought up for Adriel.” 
(Authorized version.) Now, Michal was never the wife 
of Adriel, but her sister Merab was. ‘The authorized 
version, therefore, shows her as foster-mother for her 
five nephews, the sons of her elder sister. The Chal- 
dean version has this reading of the verse: ‘The five 
sons of Merab which she bore to Adriel and which 
Michal, the daughter of Saul, brought up.” But it would 
seem that the Hebrew word means bore rather than 
trained, so such scholars as Dr. Hastings, and Dr. Schaff 
say that the name Michal in the passage is a scribal mis- 
entry by a copyist and should be Merab, which is per- 
fectly consistent. The Syriac and the Arabic have Nedab 
which is the equivalent of Merab just as Uzziah is the 
equivalent of Azariah in the historical books of Israel. 

And so of the references to the sun standing still. 
Some most interesting astronomical calculations have 
been made as to the possibility of just such an effect as 
that at the very time the incident occurred. But apart 
from that, who would say it was untrue if I declared 
that “I saw a beautiful sunrise this morning.” Now I 
really saw no such thing. What I actually saw was an 
earth-roll, not a sun-rise. The sun doesn’t “rise,” yet 
we so say. ‘The essential fact in the Joshua incident 
was that God miraculously prolonged the daylight, and 
to anyone who believes in miracles there is no difficulty 
whatever in accepting that as truth. I myself once saw 
such a wonderful after-glow, because of the peculiar 
atmospheric conditions and cloud effects, out in Cali- 


47 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


fornia, that I read a newspaper out of doors after nine 
o’clock at night! 


A CONVERTED RATIONALIST 


Let me take one more important and specific case in 
which my opponent asserted positively that there was 
an historical error. I refer to the matter of the taking 
of the census at the time of the birth of Jesus, as re- 
corded in the second chapter of Luke. My opponent 
asserts that there are three errors of history in that 
passage, and argues that no such census was taken. 

Now I hold here in my hands one of the greatest and 
most recent books dealing with the Bible times. This 
book, “THE BEARING OF RECENT DISCOVERY 
ON THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE NEW 
TESTAMENT,” is from the pen of one of the greatest 
men of our age, Sir William Ramsay, a recognized au- 
thority in his field. In the book he makes something of 
a confession concerning his own early doubts about 
some of the alleged historical errors, etc., in the New 
Testament. He tells us how he refused to swallow the 
theories of the German rationalists, however, and deter- 
mined to go and see for himself. Thus he journeyed 
over the New Testament lands and searched out the rec- 
ords on all disputed points, and he tells us how he was 
overwhelmed at last with the conviction of the accuracy 
and the literal truthfulness of the New Testament in all 
of these things. 

He deals with this matter of the census at length. 
He says that the theories, implying that Luke invented 
this story, “destroy themselves in the light of the facts.” 
He quotes from Roman records the edicts, “That all who 
for any reason whatever are away from their own Nomos 
should return to their home to enroll themselves,” and 

48 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


in connection with the return of Mary and Joseph to 
Bethlehem at the time of the birth of Jesus, he says: 
“From modern discovery it now appears that the order 
to return to the original home, though in a sense non- 
Roman in spirit, was the regular feature of the census 
in the Eastern provinces. * * * From a fair, un- 
prejudiced and rational consideration of the evidence 
of Luke, Pliny, Tacitus, Clement and Tertullian, we 
conclude that the statements of Luke are all probable in 
themselves, and that the theory either of invention or 
of stupid error on his part is unreasonable and un- 
justifiable. * * * This theory is an astonishing ex- 
ample of modern European capacity for making false 
judgments.” (Page 253.) And in speaking a little later 
of this same false scholarship, which presumptuously 
sets itself up as superior to God’s word, Ramsay says: 

“T confess that, when I see the self-satisfied and pre- 
tentious ignorance of the critical theologians miscalling 
and vilifying this most wonderful little gem of historical 
insight and word painting, I find it difficult to restrain 
my indignation. These are the dull and blind savants 
whom the modern world has accepted as ‘learned,’ and 
to whom so many have humbly bowed down and done 
homage and worship.” 

So much, then, for my opponent’s flat assertion that 
there are three errors of history in this one passage. 
There are no errors. The old Book is vindicated by 
facts, and it has been thus vindicated again and again 
over all such contested points. Dr. Sayce, another one 
of the world’s leading archaeologists, has said truly: 
“Every turn of the spade has unearthed corroborative 
evidence of the minute truthfulness of Scriptural his- 
tory.’ And Professor Sayce said further in acknowl- 
edging a mistaken conclusion that he had reached on a 

49 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


point of Biblical history, “We must write our history 
of Elam all over again. We have been wrong and 
the tenth chapter of Genesis is right after all.” 

I can never forget the impression made upon my own 
mind as I stood before the inscriptions on the wall of 
the old temple at Karnak, Egypt, and saw there the 
account of Shishak’s campaign in Israel, and the list of 
the names of the cities that he had conquered. The two 
accounts—one written upon the page of the Bible and 
the other carved in enduring stone—are in agreement! 
I can never forget, either, the thrill which I experienced 
in connection with the discoveries of Petrie at the treas- 
ure house of ancient Egypt, dating back to the time of 
the Israelitish bondage. He found there in those walls 
some brick made with straw and other brick made with- 
out straw, suggesting in a way that was dramatic and 
overwhelming the literal accuracy of the Bible account 
of how the ancient Israelites were so driven by their 
task masters. Some of the bricks that they made, of 
necessity, had to be made without straw. 


THE MORAL CHARACTER OF GOD 


Just a word, in closing, in reply to the aspersions 
which my opponent casts upon the moral character of 
God as He is pictured in the Old Testament record. 
Take, for example, his reference to the suggestion about 
giving defective things to strangers and aliens. How 
trivial and unfair was his interpretation! Apart en- 
tirely from considerations about the peculiar customs of 
the Hebrews, which differed radically from the cus- 
toms of other ancient peoples, was it indeed not better 
to give to the poor that which was not of use to its 
owner than utterly to discard it without having it serve 
anyone? Does not my opponent know that thoughtful 

50 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


writers have commented again and again upon the nobil- 
ity of the teaching of the Old Testament in connection 
with the “stranger”? We find the care with which God 
directed just treatment and consideration for strangers 
one of the most unique and noble elements in the Hebrew 
writings. 

While, of course, it is well known that the Bible is a 
progressive revelation, and that the full-rounded view 
of the character of God can be obtained only in the light 
of both Old and New Testaments taken together, never- 
theless, the aspersions cast upon God, as revealed in the 
Old Testament, are without warrant in fact or justifica- 
tion in ethics. It is certainly a strange paradox that faith 
in the God of the Bible, whom my opponent claims was 
an immoral Being, has produced the highest morality 
that the human race has ever known! While the fore- 
most nations of antiquity were bowing down to dumb 
idols, while Egypt was worshipping the crocodile, while 
Athens was giving tens of thousands of women to the 
licentious rites of Venus, and Alexandria was rotting 
in sensuality through the worship of Aphrodite, while 
Rome was adoring the bloody god of war, and while 
even the Parsee could rise no higher than to turn his 
face eastward and adore the sun, the ancient Hebrews 
were worshipping a spiritual God—holy, just, righteous, 
and true. 

The alleged immorality of God in directing the chil- 
dren of Israel to “borrow” from the Egyptians is entirely 
beside the mark. The revised version makes it per- 
fectly plain that they “asked” gifts—not loans—and that 
the Egyptians ‘“‘gave’’—not “lent,” as in the old version. 
God was the owner of all that silver and gold, and the 
children of Israel were His own chosen people, called 
out from among all others to bring God’s truth sad a 

51 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


Savior for the whole world. If God, therefore, directed 
that enough of the silver and gold which He owned in 
Egypt be asked for to later adorn His Tabernacle and 
Temple, He had the full right so to do. Further, it is 
well known that ancient peoples were accustomed to 
asking and receiving gifts from one another in connec- 
tion with their religious rites,—and that there was an 
abundance of gold in ancient Egypt—enough and to 
spare for all—is proved by the recent discoveries in Tut- 
ankh-amen’s tomb! The Bible, too, says explicitly that 
“the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the 
Egyptians, so that they gave unto them such things as 
they required.” (Ex. 12:36.) Evidently, God’s spirit 
moved the Egyptians to a sense of justice in remember- 
ing the long years of labor which the Hebrews had 
given them as slaves. 

And now as to the alleged immorality of God in hard- 
ening the heart of Pharaoh, that also is beside the mark. 
The Bible says in other places that Pharaoh hardened 
his own heart. Every student of Scripture knows that 
there is a difference between a case where God permits 
men whose wills are already turned from Him, as was 
the case with Pharaoh, to be hardened in heart, even 
because of the fact that that very hardening opens the 
way for possible redemption when judgment has fallen 
upon them and they see the futility and sin of resisting 
God, and a case where He plans and brings about the 
hardening. 

It is well known, too, to all fair minds who come to 
the study of the Scriptures, that God had to deal with 
ancient peoples and conditions as they were and not as 
they should have been in some ideal state. Just as Jesus 
said about divorce, that Moses permitted it because of 
the “hardness of the hearts’’ of the people, so the stoning 

52 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


of children and all of that has to be interpreted in the 
light of the age. There were no reformatories, etc., 
in that time, and the Hebrews were a nomadic people. 
Obedience to parents, therefore, was vitally necessary 
if any semblance of order was to be maintained in the 
families and the tribes. One such incorrigible and hope- 
less degenerate as is described in Deuteronomy 21 :18-21 
might not only pollute all the other children in a family, 
but spread ruin far and wide throughout the tribe. Those 
nomadic people would either have to take such a son, 
with his moral contagion and ruin to himself and others, 
along with them in their journeys, or else dispose of 
him in some other way. The influence of such a char- 
acter would lead to things worse than death to other 
children, and so the parents were authorized to bring 
iim for trial before the “elders of the city’ (verse 20). 
The custom was for the elders to meet in “the gate” of 
the camp or city for the trial of all cases, and verse 19 
here proves that parents were to bring any incorrigible, 
gluttonous drunken son to the elders for trial. 

They were authorized to punish with death by ston- 
ing, the customary form of execution. The purpose of 
it all, however, was a moral purpose from God’s side. 
The object was “so shalt thou put evil away from among 
you; and all Israel shall hear and fear’ (verse 21). 
Evidently the purpose of the stern judgment was to 
prevent crimes among the young through a wholesome 
fear, and the fact that we have no record of any case 
of such stoning in the Bible shows that it worked out 
just as God planned that it should. Furthermore, the 
fact that Judaism and Christianity are the two religions 
that have protected and glorified childhood is a sufficient 
answer to the libel that God was cruel in His attitude to 
the young. 

53 


THE BATTLE OVER THE BIBLE 


THE SUPREME NEED TODAY 


And as regards the much trumpeted “imprecatory 
psalms,” a discriminating student of Scripture can plain- 
ly see that such psalms, when rightly understood as a 
part of the divine revelation, cannot be said to be faulty 
in ethics. In some cases they were ebullitions of per- 
sonal anger and the desire for vengeance which is a 
part of the weakness of universal humanity, and in other 
cases they are fore-tellers of God’s righteous wrath 
against His foes and expressions of His judicial indig- 
nation against evil-doing. 

The surgeon is not immoral when he amputates a 
putrid limb in order to save the life of the entire body, 
and God was not immoral when He ordered the cutting 
off of rotten individuals and groups to save the masses 
of the people from utter corruption and moral death. 
It would be well, too, for us, in this lax and easy-going 
age, if we had a little more of the moral stamina which 
Separates sharply between God’s friends and His foes 
and which would pronounce divine wrath against in- 
iquity ! 

I come back once more, therefore, to re-emphasize 
the thought that the supreme need of this age is a 
reassertion of the authority of a wise, holy, and loving 
God. The youth of today are falling increasingly into 
moral decay and loose and silly ideals of life because 
parental authority has been relaxed and the right dis- 
cipline of homes has been abandoned. An appalling 
wave of lawlessness is sweeping over America and the 
world because of disregard of constituted governmental 
authority. The blight of divorce and the ravages of 
sensuality are wasting our society because the authority 
of right social standards has been lightly and jauntily 

54 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


waved aside by the rebellious spirit of today. The ke, 
to all these dangers 1s the fact that men have lost the 
fear of God and the reverence for His authoritative 
word, which characterized former generations; and we 
will see obedience to parents and respect for laws and 
the purification of social ideals brought about only when 
first of all men everywhere are willing again to bow their 
wills to the will of a heavenly Father and, in joy and 
strength, to walk in the way that He has laid out. 

The Bible has survived all of the foes of the past, 
and it will prove once more victorious against the foes 
of the present. The coat-of-arms of the French Bible 
and Tract Society is the picture of a Bible in the form 
of an anvil, around which numbers of broken hammers 
lie upon the ground, and the motto is: “The hammers 
break; the anvil abides forever!” 


55 


TWO: EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


I 


IN THE NEGATIVE 


QUESTION : 

RESOLVED, THAT THE EarTH AND MAN CAME BY 
EVOLUTION. 

There are but two notable theories concerning the 
origin of the earth and of man—one is creation by a 
living God; the other is evolution by dead force. 

Evolution is not a fact of science, but a dogma of 
philosophy. Both its history and its essential nature 
prove that it belongs primarily to the realm of subjective 
speculation and not to the field of demonstrated fact. 
Even Professor Conklin, of Princeton, while declaring 
his acceptance of the theory of evolution, nevertheless 
says that “evolution must ever remain a theory.” (“The 
Direction of Human Evolution’’—preface.) Now a 
mere “‘theory” cannot be a science. Hence the term “the 
science of evolution” is a misnomer, and evolution should 
not seek to gain vogue by running on the prestige and 
popularity of the exact sciences. 

Those of us who deny the theory of evolution, there- 
fore, have no antagonism to true science. We only object 
to having that which is merely an hypothesis proclaimed 
dogmatically as though it were really fact. So far as I 
am personally concerned I am ready to accept evolution 
if it can really be proved true. Every man ought to be 
willing to accept truth from any quarter, however destruc- 
tive it may be of former convictions. It is significant, 
however, that many who at first are fascinated by the 
plausible generalizations of evolution, turn from it after 

56 


IN THE NEGATIVE 


fuller examination of its alleged evidence and more 
mature consideration of its claims. 

The great scientist, Prof. George Romanes, of Oxford, 
had such an experience. For a period in his life he was 
an infidel and extreme evolutionist; and it is highly sig- 
nificant that during that time he wrote and spoke strongly 
against the Bible teaching of Creation, and against super- 
naturalism in all its forms. But later in life, through 
the letters of a Japanese missionary friend, dealing with 
experimental and practical religion, he changed his views 
entirely, accepted the Bible, and died in 1894, confessing 
his faith in God and in the full Diety of Jesus Christ. 
(“The Other Side of Evolution,” p. 109.) 

I, also, have had a similar experience. For quite a 
period of my life—extending into a part of the time that 
I have been a preacher—I was an evolutionist; or at 
least I thought that I was, and accepted that view of the 
universe and of man; but fuller study, both in the field 
of science and philosophy, not only convinced me that 
evolution is a colossal error, but that when logically fol- 
lowed out, it is utterly incompatible with the Christian 
religion. 

My honorable opponent, before the first debate of this 
series, remarked that he had some advantage over me be- 
cause before he became a Unitarian he was a Baptist, and 
therefore he thought he knew about what my arguments 
would be in the debate on the Bible. 

I now profess the same advantage over him. I was 
once an evolutionist and sceptic, but I have come back 
to the truth of Creation by a living God rather than evolu- 
tion by blind chance. Therefore, I can speak with a 
deeper degree of conviction than if I had not passed 
through such an experience. We have agreed to accept 
LeConte’s concise definition, namely that evolution is 
“continuous progressive change, according to fixed laws, 
and by resident forces.”” We have the privilege, however, 

57 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


of turning the light of other and fuller definitions from 
authoritative sources upon the question, that we may see 
clearly just what evolution really is and what it leads to. 


ANTI-GOD AND ANTI-BIBLE 


It is highly significant that the idea of evolution orig- 
inated in pagan and heathen minds and was not a native 
product of the Christian intellect. The Greek phi- 
losophers speculated about the origin of the world in a 
fire mist, and Aristotle developed some of the main ideas 
of evolution long before Lamarck or Darwin or Spencer 
lived. 

The Century Dictionary and Encyclopedia defines evo- 
lution in mechanical terms and as “opposed to creation- 
ism.” 

Huxley specifically declared: “It is clear that the doc- 
trine of evolution is directly antagonistic to that of cre- 
ation—as applied to the creation of the world as a whole, 
it is opposed to that of direct creative volition. Evolu- 
tion, if consistently accepted, makes it impossible to believe 
the Bible.” 

Huxley’s discussions with Gladstone and others were 
all based on the idea that the theory of evolution was 
incompatible with the Bible and the God of the Bible. 

Sir Oliver Lodge says: 


“Taught by science, we learn that there has been no fall 
of man; there has been arise. Through an ape-like ancestry, 
back through a tadpole and fish-like ancestry, away to the 
early beginnings of life, the origin of man is being traced.” 
(“Ideals of Science and Faith.’’) 


In his article on evolution in the Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica, Professor James Sulley defines evolution as a 
“natural history of the cosmos, including organic beings, 
expressed in physical terms as a mechanical process.” 
Lamarck, Darwin, Spencer and the more recent evolu- 
tionists, even those who try to hold on to faith in some 

58 


IN THE NEGATIVE 


sort of God while still holding to these theories, all define 
evolution in purely mechanical terms which really, of 
necessity, exclude God. And Darwin lost his faith in a 
living God through these evolutionary ideas. 

Ernst Haeckel, the most logical, consistent and thor- 
oughgoing of modern evolutionists, the only legitimate 
successor to Darwin’s place and greatness, argued that 
evolution could completely dispense with the supernatural 
in any form and with any sort of personal interposition. 

He explicitly denied the existence of a living God. 
He said: 


“This notion [of a personal God or creator] is rendered 
quite untenable by the advancements of Monistic science. 
It is already antiquated and is destined before the present 
century is ended to drop out of currency.” (“Christianity 
and Anti-Christianity,’ p. 189.) 


Another frank evolutionist, Carl Vogt, says: 


“Evolution turns the Creator out of doors.” 


PANTHEISM AND MAN-WORSHIP 


My opponent, therefore, cannot claim God as the “resi- 
dent force’ under our definition, as he tried to do, unless, 
indeed, he is willing to admit himself a Pantheist, and 
say that God is wholly locked up in nature. If we admit 
any god outside of nature, then we must say with Genesis: 
“In the beginning, God.” A living God, therefore, must 
be before the material world which He made. Hence, 
He cannot be wholly in that material world. A living 
God must be transcendent as well as immanent. He is 
before and above the world, and yet in it through His 
providential control and directing care. The engineer 
cannot be in his engine. He is the maker and driver of 
the engine, and his skill and controlling power are in it, 
but the engineer himself cannot be in the fire and the 
steam that drive the engine. The idea of any sort of 
“spirit” or living God locked up in the earth as it passed 

59 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


through stages of gaseous nebulosity and then of molten 
fire, etc., is simply unthinkable. It is an absurdity. The 
only possible god of evolution is the god of Pantheism, 
not a living being at all, but merely the “principle” or 
“law” of nature. 

Now since the only god possible to evolution is 
Pantheism—god in nature as a mere “principle” or “law” 
or “eternal energy,” as Spencer put it—it is proper that 
we should point out that Pantheism always has and 
always will lead to ruinous moral and social results when 
it is accepted by mén. 

For one thing, it leads to the worship of nature— 
principally the sun. And the awful immorality and the 
social decay of ancient Egypt, and other countries through 
the worship of the sun and of nature, should be a suffi- 
cient warning to us. Another inevitable and immediate 
result of Pantheism is that it leads to the deification of 
man, and hence to self-worship, with all the vanity and 
moral and social decay that inevitably follow such 
colossal error. 

Therefore, the issue in this debate is not only an issue 
between creation and evolution, but between God and 
no God. 


No “THEISTIC” OR “CHRISTIAN” EVOLUTION 


Furthermore, it is evident that there is no possible 
compromise between these two systems of thought. 
There is no middle ground. Either creation is true and 
evolution is false, or else evolution is true and creation 
is false. Either we must accept the revelation of a living 
God, and His creative and redemptive activities as given 
in the Bible, or we must utterly reject this and turn to 
the infidel philosophy of chance and materialism. 

In other words, there is no such thing as so-called 
“theistic” or “Christian” evolution. Such terms are mis- 
nomers. Christianity is a religion founded on definite 

60 


IN THE NEGATIVE 


historical facts. These facts—including the creation of 
the world, and the creation, fall and salvation of man— 
are recorded in the Bible. If, therefore, the Bible is 
rejected, Christianity itself is rejected. In the face of 
the essential nature of evolution, and in the light of defi- 
nitions of it already given, the terms “Christianity” and 
“evolution” are mutually exclusive and self-contradictory. 
If it is Christianity, then it is not evolution; and if it is 
evolution, then it is not Christianity. The mixed teach- 
ings of such men as Henry Drummond, Lyman Abbott, 
and others, prove that they did not think these evolu- 
tionary theories through to their logical and inevitable 
conclusion in unbelief. Such men either do not know 
what real Christianity is, or else they do not know what 
real evolution is. They are manifestly self-deceived if 
they try to hold on to both evolution and Christianity. 


THE QUESTION FOR DEBATE 


The question for debate is, “Resolved, That the Earth 
and Man Came by Evolution.” There are two parts in 
this resolution. The first relates to the origin of the 
earth and the second relates to the origin of man. The 
subject, therefore, involves first a consideration of inor- 
ganic evolution, or the alleged evolution of matter until 
it reached its present form in our earth; and the second, 
the question of organic evolution, with its alleged origin 
of life upon this planet, through materialistic natural 
forces, culminating in the coming of man. 

My opponent is championing the affirmative in this 
debate, and because of the fact that he is seeking to 
establish a theory which is exactly contrary to the Reve- 
lation upon which Christendom has founded its life and 
institutions for thousands of years, the burden of proof 
is upon him. He must prove two things: first, that the 
earth originated or “‘came’”’ by evolution; and, secondly, 
that man originated or “came” by evolution. He must 

61 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


establish these two propositions by facts that are intelli- 
gible and convincing to the reasonable mind, and these 
facts must come in the form of credible evidence, and 
not mere supposition, guesses or hypotheses. Unless he 
can establish both of these propositions by facts, then he 
has lost the debate. My task in the debate is merely to 
point out the impossibility of his so doing, and to show 
that there is a far clearer and simpler way to account 
for the origin of the earth and man than by so-called 
evolution. 

The question for debate is not, therefore, primarily a 
question of method. It is primarily a question of origins. 
Method cannot begin to work until something has origi- 
nated for the method to work in or on. Hence a begin- 
ning must precede any evolution. The very name of such 
a book as Darwin’s “Origin of Species” shows that. The 
real issue in the debate is whether the earth and man 
originated, or came, by design through the creative power 
of God, or by chance through the haphazard operation 
of evolution. It is the issue between naturalism and 
supernaturalism; between calculated planning and mere 
fortuitous circumstance. 

It is to be clearly noted that there is a difference be- 
tween evolution and development. The principle of 
development in human life, social institutions, and even 
animals under man’s selective skill, is freely admitted. 
It is in this sense that the word evolution is often used 
by newspaper editors, speakers, magazine writers, etc. 
But this is radically different from evolution in the 
technical and scientific sense in which we are to consider 
it in this debate. In the technical sense it must be re- 
stricted to the alleged origin of matter and life through 
mechanical forces and without divine creative power; and, 
after such origin, the descent of all inorganic matter and 
all organic life from their simple primitive origins. 

I ask the careful attention, then, of the judges and 

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the audience to the exact form of the question for debate, 
and the full content of the definition of evolution upon 
which my opponent and I have agreed. The question is 
“Resolved, That the Earth and Man Came—that is, 
Originated—by Evolution.” The definition is that of the 
geologist LeConte, that evolution is “continuous progres- 
sive change; according to fixed laws; by resident forces.” 
This means that evolution is (1) “continuous progressive 
change”; that is to say, its operation must be going on 
progressively now just as it is alleged it has always gone 
on in the past; (2) “according to fired laws’’; that is, 
there can be no change in the controlling laws and prin- 
ciples; evolution cannot be one thing in a former age and 
another thing today; and (3) “by resident forces’; that 
is, there can be no outside interference—all must come 
from within, however great the modifications and 
changes in outward forms may appear. 

And, since it is claimed that evolution is a universal 
law that accounts for all things, and that it is operative 
everywhere, there ought to be an abundance of facts on 
all sides to prove it if it is really true. But when we 
turn to look for the facts, we find, strange to say, that 
they are simply not there. 


ParT ONE 


How THE EartH CAME 


Let us take up first, then, the question of the origin 
of the earth. Notice, to begin with, that the scientists 
frankly admit that they do not know and therefore can- 
not tell us how the earth originated. Darwin himself 
said, positively, “The beginning of the universe is an 
unsolvable mystery.’’ Notice that he admitted that it was 
not only a mystery, but an unsolvable mystery. Tyndal 
declared: “Evolution does not profess to solve the ulti- 
mate mystery of the universe.” Prof. Clifford states it 
still more bluntly. He says: “Of the beginning of the 

63 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


universe, we know nothing at all.” Prof. Edward Clodd 
says: “Of the beginning, of what was before the present 
state of things, we know nothing and speculation is fu- 
tile; but since everything points to the finite duration of 
the present creation, we must make a start somewhere” 
(“Story of Creation,” p. 137). 

But when we enter the so-called scientific field we are 
plunged immediately into a morass of speculations, hy- 
potheses and guesses about alleged facts, on which no 
two of the scientists agree among themselves. 


THE SLIPS OF SCIENTISTS VS. THE ““MISTAKES OF MOSES” 


My opponent, in our last debate, pointed out some 
alleged contradictions and supposed mistakes in the Bible. 
I wish now to point out some of the blunders of science. 

For instance, the temperature of the interior of the 
earth is stated to be 1,530 degrees by one scientist, and 
350,000 degrees by another! Herschel calculated the 
mountains on the moon to be half a mile high, but Fergu- 
son said they were fifteen miles high. Lyell estimated 
that it had required over 35,000 years for the Niagara 
River to eat back to the present position of the falls, but 
he was later cut down to some 7,000 years. Lyell also 
calculated that the delta at the mouth of the Mississippi 
River had been 100,000 years in forming, but General 
Humphrey, of the U. S. Survey, estimated it at only 
4,000 years. 

Glance now at the startling variations in scientific 
guesses concerning the probable age of man. Myers says 
that the Old Stone Age of man is to be measured not by 
thousands but by millions of years. M. Rutot says the 
relics of man which have been found date back to 139,000 
years ago. Osborn places the first real man 500,000 
years ago; James Geikie, 200,000; Croll, 980,000; 
Sturge, 700,000; Townsend, 6,000; while Prof. LeConte 

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IN THE NEGATIVE 


says: ‘“The time which elapsed since man first appeared 
is still doubtful; some estimate it at more than 100,000 
years, and some say 10,000.” All the way from “mil- 
lions” to 6,000 years! Well! well! 

And when it comes to the question of the age of the 
earth, there is a variety and liberality of estimates, and 
a prodigal waste of ciphers, that fairly stagger the mind. 
No two of the scientists agree, even in their guesses, and 
when their estimates are brought side by side there is 
such a wide difference that the comparison becomes posi- 
tively laughable. Prof. Ramsay, for example, estimated 
the age of our earth at fully ro,o00 million years. Sir 
Charles Lyell estimated it at four hundred million years. 
Charles Darwin said that it was more than three hundred 
million years. Dr. Croll, in his book on “Stellar Evolu- 
tion,’ said that “at most it was twenty millions of years,”’ 
while Prof. Tait, in his “Recent Advances in Physical 
Science,” said that the age of the earth is “at most ten 
million years.’’ Now, my friends, here is a little dis- 
crepancy between the highest and lowest estimates of nine 
thousand nine hundred and ninety millions of years! 
Well, that is a right considerable slice of time, we must 
all admit. 

When we hear people say, therefore: “I would believe 
the Bible if it agreed with science,’ we have to ask: 
“What science?’ How can the Bible possibly agree with 
both Professor Ramsay and Professor Tait, or with both 
Darwin or Lyell, when they themselves are millenniums 
apart? 

I quote these figures not in a spirit of levity nor be- 
cause I am lacking in respect for true science, when it 
stays in its appointed field and remains on solid ground, 
but I merely give these figures to show that the scientists 
really know nothing about the origin of the world, its 
age, or how it came into existence. 

65 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 
SOME SCIENTIFIC GUESSES 


But as Prof. Clodd says, the scientists and philosophers 
must make a start somewhere. Not having any real facts 
and no true knowledge, when they turn from revelation, 
they are driven to guesswork. 

As I have anticipated my opponent’s argument in its 
main points in preparation for the debate, I will take 
up in passing some of the points he made, reserving a 
consideration of other points for my rebuttal. This will 
be an economy of time, and as the main lines of alleged 
evidences for evolution are comparatively narrow, it is 
really necessary to handle the matter in this fashion. 

I congratulate my opponent on the presentation he has 
made of his side of the question. To have such a weak 
case, he has done well. 

Let us take up, then, some of the guesses which the 
scientists have made in their effort to account for the 
origin of the earth on a materialistic basis. 

We will consider, first, the so-called “nebular hypothe- 
sis,’ which is the main effort that the mind of man has 
made to account for the beginning of the earth on 
naturalistic grounds. In this connection, my opponent 
referred to some of the spiral nebula which have been 
observed by astronomers. I only say in passing that 
astronomers differ widely among themselves as to just 
what these spiral nebulz are, and as to their real signifi- 
cance. Certainly, they have no direct connection with 
the proposition that our earth originated in a mass of 
nebulous matter that threw off portions of itself which 
became the planets with their satellites, etc. All of this 
is not only a mere guess, as the very term “nebular 
hypothesis” proves, but it must be admitted when the 
simplest facts are known that it is a bad guess. It is 
founded upon a series of assumptions so gigantic that 
they stagger the rational mind of man and stretch human 
credulity to the very breaking point. 

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IN THE NEGATIVE 


No two scientists agree about it. Tyndal says that the 
world began in a “fire mist” that contracted as it became 
cold; but Spencer says it was a cold cloud which became 
heated as it contracted! Which shall we believe? Well, 
we cannot believe either if we follow true scientific expe- 
rience, for the gases (or fire mists) that we know any- 
thing about do not act in either of those ways today. 
Further, there are now facts sufficient to throw the 
“nebular hypothesis’ entirely out of court. 

The simple fact that some of the bodies in our solar 
system, as, for example, our own moon and the satellites 
of Jupiter and Saturn, revolve from west to east, while 
the moons of Uranus and Neptune revolve from east to 
west, explodes the theory that the bodies in our solar 
system were thrown off and set revolving by some cen- 
tral, revolving parent mass of matter, for in that event 
they would all of necessity have to revolve in the same 
direction. 

Furthermore, it must be self-evident that if the bodies 
of matter in our solar system were all thrown off, re- 
volving rapidly, from a revolving mass of “parent mat- 
ter,” they would all naturally revolve with at least some- 
thing like the same approximate speed, due regard of 
course being had to size. But this reasonable expectation 
is not met. Two of the eight principal planets in our 
solar system—namely, Mercury and Venus—have almost 
no rotation at all. Both of them move around the sun 
with the same side practically always toward that central 
object, just in the same way that our moon moves around 
the earth. Mercury occupies 88 days in its orbit and 
Venus 224 days in its orbit. Mercury only turns upon 
its axis four times in a year, while Venus is slower still, 
and takes seven or eight months to make one complete 
rotation. 

Yet, despite these facts, the evolutionists—and espe- 
cially the popular writers of today who, through their 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


“Outlines of History,” “Outlines of Science,’ “Stories 
of Mankind,” “Stories of the Bible,” etc., are so pro- 
foundly influencing our children with their skepticism— 
build their entire structure upon this impossible “nebular 
hypothesis” in some one of its numerous forms. 


GUESSER USED DOGMATICALLY 


Take, for example, Wells, in his book, “The Outline 
of History.” Wells builds the entire framework of his 
book upon the nebular hypothesis as a beginning, and 
then he goes on, in the accepted fashion of evolutionists, 
to account for the origin of the earth, the beginning of 
life, etc., and then gives his sketchy outline of human 
history, and bases his skepticism and also his dangerous 
socialism on this foundation. On the very first page of 
his book, Wells speaks of the sun. He says that “it is a 
mass of flaming matter,” and then on page three he gives 
his version of the nebular hypothesis and the origin of 
our earth. I call attention to the dogmatic tone of his 
assertions. Accepting the conclusion of the “scientists” 
to whom he refers, he says: 

“Vast ages ago the sun was a spinning, flaring mass of 
matter, not yet concentrated into a compact center of 
heat and light, considerably larger than it is now, and 
spinning very much faster, and that as it whirled a series 
of fragments detached themselves from it and became 
the planets. Our earth is one of the planets.” 

So there we have it. One is moved to inquire, but how 
does Mr. Wells know all this? He speaks with such cock- 
sureness that we might well imagine that he was present 
and observed these remarkable gyrations of the sun, and 
the striking origin of our earth, which he so emphatically 
and dogmatically asserts. One is inclined to apply to Mr. 
Wells the questions the Almighty asked Job: 

“Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without 
knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will 

68 


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IN THE NEGATIVE 


demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou 
when I laid the foundations of the earth? . . . When the 
morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted 
for joy? Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; 
and caused the dayspring to know his place? MKnowest thou 
by what way is the light parted? Canst thou bind the sweet 
influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Hast 
thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like 
Him?” 


And because of the intellectual pride and cock-sureness 
of some so-called “scholars” today, we greatly fear that 
Mr. Wells would not answer, as Job did, and say to God: 

“TI know that Thou canst do everything, and that no 
thought can be withholden from Thee. Wherefore I abhor 
myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” 

Now as to Mr. Wells’ assertion, and the teaching of 
other evolutionists, that the sun is “a mass of flaming 
matter’ and that our earth came from it, I wish to say 
that the latest scientific thought has reached the conclu- 
sion that the sun is not a mass of flaming matter at all. 
It is now believed that the sun is simply a gigantic center 
of electrical energy. Professor R. A. Milliken, winner 
of the Nobel prize, for example, late of the University of 
Chicago and now doing such a wonderful work in the 
West, is one of the greatest living authorities on radio- 
activity. He asserts that real scientists long ago gave up 
the idea that the sun is a white-hot body engaged in cool- 
ing off. He says that the scientists have good evidence 
that the sun has existed much longer than such a process 
could possibly take. The assumption that heat waves could 
travel from any fire, however large, across 93 million 
miles of frozen space is impossible on the face of it. The 
new theory therefore, is that the sun is not “a mass of 
flaming matter” at all, but that it is simply a center of 
electrical energy—a great electro-magnetic field. The 
power of radio active matter, as these scientists point out, 
is indicated by the fact that, while radium is in the 

69 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


process of disintegrating into lead it gives off 300,000 
times as much heat as a piece of coal gives off in burning 
up. The scientists, therefore, are now arguing that the 
light and the heat that come to us from the sun are both 
electrical. 

Therefore, the hypothesis that the sun, as the nebular, 
or parent mass of matter, threw off the earth and the 
other planets, breaks down completely. 


THE PLANETESIMAL THEORY 


Other hypotheses to account for the origin of the 
earth are just as unsatisfactory as the nebular hypothesis. 
My opponent did not touch upon the other theories, but as 
he may do so in his second speech, I anticipate him here. 
Perhaps the most popular theory, after the nebular hy- 
pothesis, is what is called ‘the planetesimal theory.” Prof. 
Osborn seems to pin his faith to this particular theory. 
He says: 

“According to the planetesimal theory as set forth by 
Chamberlain, the earth, instead of consisting of a primitive 
molten globe, as postulated by the old nebular hypothesis of 
Laplace, originated in a nebulous knot of solid matter as a 
nucleus of growth, which was fed by the infall or accretion 
of scattered nebulous matter (planetesimals) coming within 
the sphere of control of this knot.” (“The Origin and 
Evolution of Life,” p. 25.) 


So, according to this, we started in a knot that had 
other matter dumped upon it, instead of a rotating ball 
of gas! We were created by a bombardment instead of 
a whirligig! 

Well, we remark in passing, that the old earth is cer- 
tainly tied up in a knot now, and all the gas—whether 
hot or cold, of statesmen, scientists, philosophers and 
debating preachers does not seem able to untie it! 

But notice that this “planetesimal theory” is open to 
just as many fatal objections as the other nebular 
hypothesis. For one thing it is nothing but a guess. 

70 


IN THE NEGATIVE 


For another thing, there is absolutely no explanation of 
how this solid “knot of matter’ got there, and that is the 
question in this debate. Nor can this theory adequately 
account for the spherical form of the earth, or other vital 
phenomena—so we may just dismiss it as an incompetent 
witness, with the thanks of the court. 


CHANCE VS. GOD 


All of these theories try to substitute blind force or 
mere chance for the creative power of a living God, and 
I confidently submit that it is irrational so to do. It has 
been calculated, for example, that if the twenty-six let- 
ters of the alphabet were thrown about promiscuously by 
chance force, they might fall together in the present order 
of the alphabet—-A-B-C-etc., once in five hundred million, 
million, million times that they were thus tossed up and 
allowed to fall by chance. 

What then would be the probability of the countless 
combinations of nature coming together in the wonder- 
ful order of our earth if they had depended on the chance 
happenings to which evolution has to attribute them? 

Not only is it true that scientific and philosophical 
speculation have not and cannot account for the origin 
of matter and force or energy, in our earth, but it is also 
true that there is no real knowledge concerning even the 
nature of matter and energy. The old “atomic theory,” 
that matter is composed of minute indivisible particles, 
called “atoms” has had to be abandoned because.the dis- 
covery of radio-activity and other facts about electricity 
seem to prove that the ultimate division of matter is not 
a solid particle, or “atom’’ at all, but rather a minute 
center of electrical energy, now called the “electron.” 
The “electron” has simply crowded the “atom” off the 
stage! Therefore, the origin of the earth as a mass of 
matter is not only still an unsolved mystery, so far as 
science is concerned, but the origin and true nature of the 

a 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


simplest component parts that make up matter are now 
confessed to be a greater mystery than ever before. 

Because of the established laws of the indestructibility 
of matter and the conservation of energy, it is now 
known that the quantity of both matter and energy in the 
world is fixed. No means are known to science by which 
either matter or energy can be either increased or dimin- 
ished. 

Now, since the accepted definition of evolution is that 
it is “continuous progressive change,” we would have to 
expect the continued origination of both matter and 
energy by the “fixed law” of evolution today just as it 
is alleged to have produced them in the past. Since no 
such thing is going on, but, on the other hand, since it is 
known that the quantity of both matter and energy are 
not now being increased, therefore evolution with its 
“continuous progressive change,” must be abandoned, 
and we are driven, of necessity, back to the truth that 
the matter and energy now in the world came in the 
beginning by creation. 

Furthermore, since it is admitted that the earth had a 
beginning, unless we accept the fact of God as the 
Creator in that beginning, then we are driven to the 
absurdity of thought that nothing made something out of 
nothing. 


Part Two 


How Man CAME 


Coming, now, to the question of how man came, I 
remark merely that over against the evolutionary hypoth- 
esis is the plain statement of the Bible that ‘God 
created man in His own image.” 

That we may get a contrast between the two ideas of 
the origin and nature of man, I wish to give you first 
the picture of the Bible Adam and then the picture of 

72 


IN THE NEGATIVE 


the scientific Adam. I give you first the condensed Bible 
account as follows: 


“And God said, let us make man in our image, after our 
likeness. . . . God created man in his own image, in the 
image of God created he him; male and female created He 
them. ... The Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and 
man became a living soul. . . . God blessed them, and God 
said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the 
earth, and subdue it; and have dominion. And the Lord 
God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to 
dress it and to keep it.” (Gen.1:26, 273.11: 7, 15.). There 
it is,—all beautiful, inspiring and ennobling. 


Here, now, is the evolutionists’ account, as stated by 
Darwin: 


“Man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished 
with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits 
and an inhabitant of the Old World. This creature, if its 
whole structure had been examined by a naturalist, would 
have been classed among the Quadrumana, as surely as 
would the common and still more ancient progenitor of the 
Old and New World monkeys. The Quadrumana and all 
the higher mammals are probably derived from an ancient 
marsupial animal, and this through a long line of diversi- 
fied forms, either from some reptile-like, or some amphibion- 
like creature, and this again from some fish-like animal.” 
(Darwin’s “Descent of Man,” ii, 372.) 


Professor Edward Clodd, in his book, “The Making 
of a Man” (page 126), goes a step further than Darwin 
and tells us that this creature was changed from an ape 
into a man largely by learning to throw things with his 
front feet. I am not exaggerating it one whit, and 
Professor Clodd is not writing in any humorous vein. 
He is most serious when he speaks of our arboreal 
ancestor. Hear him: 


“While some for awhile remained arboreal in their 
habits, never moving easily on the ground, although mak- 
ing same approach to upright motion, as seen in the sham- 

73 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


bling gait of the man-like apes, others developed a way of 
walking on their hind legs which entirely set free the fore 
limbs as organs of handling and throwing. Whatever were 
the conditions which permitted this, the advantage which 
it gives is obvious. Jt was the making of a man” (page 126). 

So we were made, not by God as Genesis says, but by 
learning to throw things with our front feet. 


A “CLOSE-UP” OF THE SCIENTIFIC “ADAM” 


Let us see, now, a yet fuller description of this our 
illustrious first father; a “close-up” as the movie people 
would say. Professor Morris gives us a full detailed 
description of this unseen, yet seemingly well-known 
ancestor, in his book on “The Destiny of Man” (page 
55). He says: 


“It was probably much smaller than existing man, little 
if any more than four feet in height, and not more than 
half the weight of man. Its body was covered, though not 
profusely, with hair; the hair of the head being woolly or 
frizzly in texture and the face provided with a beard. The 
face was not jet black, like a typical African, but of a dull 
brown color; the hair being somewhat similar in color. The 
arms were long and lank, the back being much curved, the 
chest flat and narrow, the abdomen protruding, the legs rather 
short and bowed, the walk a waddling motion somewhat like 
that of the gibbon. It had deep-set eyes, greatly protruding 
mouth with gaping lips, huge ears and general ‘ape-like’ 
aspect.” 

Now, remember my friends this is not from “Puck” 
or “Judge” but from the pages of a supposedly serious 
book. Professor Morris speaks with such confidence, 
and gives us withal, such a detailed description of this 
Adam of science that we really ought, I suppose, to feel 
indebted to him. And yet, despite the fact that even the 
color of this creature’s hair and the set of his eyes is 
given to us, strange to say, neither Professor Morris nor 
any other man was there to see him, for he was the father 
of us all! 

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IN THE NEGATIVE 


And it was this beast that was “The image of God” 
and to which God imparted His spirit, if we are to believe 
the ‘‘theistic evolutionists.” Yea, this strange creature was 
the Adam of “theistic evolution.” And this creature, 
described by Darwin, Morris, and others, is the one who, 
according to “theistic evolution,” fell. But, let us inquire, 
from what did he fall? It is certainly difficult to con- 
ceive of such a monster falling. With his protruding 
abdomen, his bowed legs, and his thick sensuous lips, it 
would seem that he was about as low as any creature 
could get without any further fall. A thing has to be at 
some elevation before it can fall, but how did this awful 
creature, who had had no elevation, fall? 


A SCIENTIFIC GENEALOGY 


This, too, is the creature which, according to “theistic 
evolution,’ is a type of Christ, who is “the second 
Adam,” and through whom Christ’s lineage is traced 
back to God himself. Listen then to the genealogy of 
Christ, as given by the Bible, and then by evolution. The 
genealogy of Mary the mother of Jesus runs along in 
its close as follows: 

“Which was the son of Noah, which was the son of 
Lamech, which was the son of Mathusala, which was the 
son of Enoch, which was the son of Jared, which was the 
son of Maleleel, which was the son of Enos, which was 
the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the 
son of God” (Luke 3:36-38). 

But the “theistic evolutionists 
to run along as follows: 

“Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, 
which was the son of Adam, which was the son of an ape- 
like beast, which was the son of a reptile, which was the 
son of a fish, which was the son of a protoplasm, which 
was the son of a chemico-electrical reaction, which was the 
son of God.” 

Yes, that is about how the Adam of “theistic evolu- 

75 


> 9) 


genealogy would have 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


tion” got here. And, as for Eve, why they say nothing 
at all about her. Will the women of today stand for 
that? Some women have complained about the “Eve” 
of the Bible, but evolution simply ignores woman all 
together; it does not dignify her by giving us any ac- 
count of her origin whatsoever. It is always the “ape- 
man’ who is pictured. Now a woman can stand a rea- 
sonable amount of criticism, but to be utterly ignored 
usually makes her furious. How will the women, then, 
vote in this matter of evolution? 


THE ADMISSIONS OF SCIENTISTS 


Unless the Bible account of the creation of man is 
true, then, as in the case of the origin of our earth, we 
know absolutely nothing about the way in which man 
appeared upon this planet. The gap between dead matter 
and sentient life has never been bridged except by guesses. 
Sir William Thompson argued that life came to this 
planet on a meteor. It just rode in on a free ticket. 
This, I suppose, we ought to call the “Shenandoah” or 
“Dixmude theory.” 

I wish to quote from the scientists and philosophers 
themselves explicit admissions that they really know 
nothing about the origin of life. The great philosopher 
Kant said: 

“Give me matter, and I will explain the formation of the 


world; but give me matter only and I cannot explain the 
formation of even a caterpillar.” 


Huxley says: “Of the causes which led to the origin 
of living matter, it may be said that we know absolutely 
nothing.” Huxley, further, in his article on biology in 
the Encyclopedia Britannica, says: “The chasm between 
the not living and the living, the present state of knowl- 
edge cannot bridge.” Herbert Spencer, in his work on 
biology (Vol. I, page 182), says: “The proximate 
chemical principles or chemical units—albumen, fibrine, 

76 


IN THE NEGATIVE 


gelatine, or the hypothetical protein substances—cannot 
possess the property of forming the endlessly varied 
structures of animal forms.” And Charles Darwin him- 
self admitted that “spontaneous generation” was an im- 
possibility of thought. 

And now, to bring these admissions of scientists that 
they really know nothing about the origin of life strictly 
up to date, J wish to quote from Professor Edward 
Clodd. Professor Clodd is an evolutionist of recognized 
standing, yet he says: . 

“The absence of facts forces us to confine ourselves 
largely to suggestions and probabilities’ (“Making of a 
Man,” page 188). 

I wish also to quote from Prof. Henry Fairfield Os- 
born, one of the most aggressive and prominent propo- 
nents of the evolutionary idea in America today. As we 
all know, he is at the head of the American Museum of 
Natural History. His admissions, therefore, that the 
scientists really know nothing about the origin of life 
must be considered final and indisputable. Listen, now, 
to what he says in perhaps his greatest book, “The Origin 
and Evolution of Life.” He says, on page 67: 

“The mode of the origin of life is a matter of pure specu- 
lation in which we have as yet little observation or unt- 
formitarian reasoning to guide us, for all the experiments 
of Butschli and others to imitate the original life process 
have proved fruitless.” 

He then puts forward what he himself calls “five 
hypotheses” in regard to the origin of life, but all of 
this, note, he himself admits is “a matter of pure specu- 
lation.” In other words, it really proves nothing. It 
only proves, I submit, that evolution belongs, as I said 
in the beginning, to the realm of subjective speculation 
and not the field of established facts. Darwin, in his 
works, used such terms as “it may be supposed,” etc., 
over eight hundred times; and to show you further how 

7 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


completely scientists are in the realm of what Osborn 
admitted is only “pure speculation,” let me quote again 
from his book a typical sentence. He says, on page 132: 

“The evolution of the articulates is believed to be as fol- 
lows: From pre-Cambrian annelidan (wormlike) stock 
arose the trilobites with their chitinous armature and many- 
jointed bodies... . Out of the eurypterid stock of Silu- 
rian times may have come the terrestrial scorpions .. . in- 
cluding the existing scorpions. It is also possible that the 
amphibious, terrestrial, and aérial Insecta were derived from 
the same ... articulate. The true Crustacea also have 
probably developed out of the same pre-Cambrian stock.” 


Here, then, in this one brief quotation there are four 
may-have-beens, or mere possibilities, suspended one 
from the other! In this one quotation, Dr. Osborn dan- 
gles before us a hypothesis, on which he hangs a suppo- 
sition, to which he attaches a guess, on which he pins 
a bare probability! It reminds one of the Scotchman’s 
definition of scientific metaphysics. He said: “Imagine 
a fog bank. Now imagine a hole in the bank. Now 
imagine the bank gone, and the hole still there. That is 
metaphysics !” 


SCIENTIFIC GUESSES ON THE ORIGIN OF MAN 


There have been guesses many about the origin and 
development of life upon this planet. They have been 
even more varied, and, I say with respect, some of them 
more grotesque, than the theories about the origin of 
the earth. I wish to say here that I do not speak with 
any disrespect of science or scientists, nor am I preju- 
diced against the schools. I have been a student of 
science, to a limited extent, for many years, and rejoice 
in the great contribution which the exact sciences have 
made to the sum total of human knowledge and happi- 
ness. It was my privilege also to teach in two of our 
American universities for several years before I devoted 
my time entirely to the work of the ministry, and so I 

78 % 


IN THE NEGATIVE 


desire the prosperity of a true and righteous educational 
system. But no man, however friendly he may be to 
science, and to the schools, can blind his eyes to the fact 
that a little group of men in this country, especially, seem 
determined to put over the evolutionary hypothesis, and 
thus to make good on their own theories. Their training 
in German universities, some elements of commercialism 
through the printing of textbooks, etc., and other con- 
siderations enter into this determination, and we have a 
full right to turn the light on and to demand facts rather 
than these wild guesses and theories, which are being 
dogmatically given to our children in the schools today, 
as though they were established truth. 

Now, what is the state of the case as to the origin of 
man? Briefly it is this: the scientists have failed com- 
pletely in their attempt to bridge the chasm between dead 
matter and sentient, ethical life. They have failed sig- 
nally to make out a case for the evolutionary hypothesis, 
so far as the origin of life is concerned. Dr. Alfred R. 
Wallace, who was really the co-discoverer with Darwin 
of the theories of evolution in their modern form, frankly 
admits that there are gaps in the evolutionary scheme 
which are not only unbridged but are unbridgable. He 
says: 


“There must have been three interpositions of a Divine 
and Supernatural Power to account for things as they are. 
The agreement of science with Genesis is surely very 
striking. There is a gulf between matter and nothing; an- 
other between life and the non-living; and a third between 
man and the lower creation—and science cannot bridge any 
of them.” 


I submit now that my honorable opponent has scarcely 
touched upon the real issue in this debate in all of his 
opening address. The issue is how the earth and man 
came—that is, how they originated—and not what hap- 
pened after they got here; but my opponent has done all 

79 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


that he could do in this connection, and he has done all 
that the scientists and the evolutionary philosophers of 
today have tried to do. Having failed to account for 
things in any rational way, or to produce any facts prov- 
ing either the origin of the earth or the origin of man by 
natural forces, they have turned their attention to an effort 
to prove that evolution is a true process as applied to the 
development of life upon this planet, regardless of how 
it may have gotten here. They hope to make out a good 
case for the proposition that higher forms of life have 
evolved from lower, and then to urge that as presumptive 
evidence that the evolutionary process was continuous as 
regards the coming of life out of dead matter, even 
though that fact cannot be demonstrated. 

I will meet my opponent, therefore, at this point, even 
though most of his arguments in these matters were not 
strictly upon the subject for debate. 

There are at last but two great arguments for the 
evolutionary hypothesis as it relates to the development 
of life upon the planet. The first is the argument from 
biology and the second is the argument from geology. 
It is possible, therefore, to group my opponent’s argu- 
ments under this broad and simple generalization. Let 
us take up first the arguments that lie in the field of 
biology. 


THE ARGUMENT FROM BIOLOGY 


Darwin’s labors were largely in the field of biology. 

Darwin’s theory of the origin of species, which has 
been and still is, in its broad outlines, the main theory, 
was founded on two ideas: one was the doctrine of 
“natural selection” through the brute struggle for exist- 
ence and the “survival of the fittest”; and the other was 
that of the inheritance of acquired characters. He held 
that the fittest survived in the life struggle because they 
had gained certain advantages over their weaker fellows, 

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IN THE NEGATIVE 


and that their naturally acquired characteristics passed 
down by heredity to their offspring. Thus, too, through 
the development and inheritance of many characteristics 
different from those in past generations, species origi- 
nated in great varieties, and man finally emerged at the 
head of the procession. 

But neither of these ideas of Darwin’s has been 
proved true. 


No “NATURAL SELECTION” 


Though admitting that there are over 2,000,000 
species upon earth, Darwin himself had to say (Life 
Gas Letiers, Vol: Til) p25):) There, are’ two’) or 
three million of species on earth—sufficient field, one 
might think, for observation. But it must be said today 
that, in spite of all the efforts of trained observers, not 
one change of a species into another 1s on record.” This 
statement can be made with even greater confidence now, 
after a lapse of over half a century since Mr. Darwin 
made the above admission. 

Dr. N. S. Shaler, Department of Geology, Harvard, 
says: 

“It begins to be evident that the Darwinian hypothesis 
is still essentially unverified. ... It is not yet proven that 
a single species of the two or three million now inhabiting 


the earth has been established solely or mainly by the 
operation of natural selection.” 


And John Burroughs, although an evolutionist up to 
_his recent death, said of Darwin, in the August, 1920, 
“Atlantic Monthly” : 


“He has already been as completely shorn of his selection 
doctrines as Sampson was shorn of his locks.” 


If these statements from scientific men mean anything 
at all, they mean, at least, that pure Darwinism is alto- 
gether unproven, if not that it is dead. 

81 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


If now there is no “natural selection,’ then we ar 
driven, of necessity, back to supernatural selection, but 
that violates the theory of evolution and is, therefore, 
contrary to the definition upon which we are going in 
this debate. 


NO ACQUIRED CHARACTERS 


Furthermore, the theory of acquired characters has not 
been proved by the scientists. The forms of vegetable 
and animal life. that man succeeds in improving by 
human selection revert rapidly to type as soon as man’s 
directing skill is withdrawn. This undeniable fact makes 
very reasonable the inference that there are certain estab- 
lished types and species which can be simply extended 
somewhat within the limits of the species, but that no 
change into a new species can come about either by 
natural or artificial selection. The scientist, Weismann, 
did some monumental work in this field, as did also 
Mendel. But no scientist has ever been able to bring 
forth a new species nor to demonstrate that acquired 
characters are hereditary. 

My opponent referred to the work of Luther Burbank, 
but his assertion that Burbank has produced new species 
is not true. The loganberry, for example, is not a new 
species but simply a combination that comes from two 
berries belonging to the same species. Burbank and 
others have done wonderful things in producing varieties 
within species, and we rejoice in their work, but none of 
them have been able to leap over the bounds of species 
nor to prove that acquired characters are hereditary. 

The very latest voice on this important subject was a 
statement during the recent sessions of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science held in Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio. Dr. D. T. MacDougal, General Secretary 
of the Association, and Director of the Laboratory for 
Plant Physiology of the Carnegie Institution, declared 

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IN THE NEGATIVE 


during the meeting of the Association, as quoted in the 
“New York Times” of January 2, 1924, that the in- 
heritance of acquired characters had not been established. 
Later in an article under his own signature in the 
“Times” of January 20, 1924, he repeated these state- 
ments. In referring to the claims of Dr. Kammer, the 
Austrian scientist, who asserts that he has proved that 
characteristics induced in salamanders, frogs, etc., by the 
action of temperatures, water and other agencies, are 
fixed and transmitted to the progeny, Dr. MacDougal 
said: “His proofs are not regarded as adequate.’ Not 
only do American scientists refuse to admit the claims of 
Dr. Kammer, but Dr. MacDougal says that the English 
scientists take the same position. He declares: 

“He has presented his results to biologists in England 
and their attitude is in accordance with that held here.” 

So far, then, as facts for establishing “natural selec- 
tion” and the inheritance of “acquired characters” are 
concerned, there are no such facts. 


SIMILARITY OF STRUCTURE 


Taking up morphology, it is found that there is a 
general similarity of plan between the lower animals and 
man. It is pointed out that the fin of the fish, the wing 
of the bird, the flipper of the whale, the leg of the 
animal and the arm of man are similar in structure. It 
is argued, therefore, that all of these forms of life have 
come from some remote common ancestor. 

There are also certain other resemblances between man 
and the lower animals that, it is said, point to the same 
conclusion. This argument, put into simple language, 
may be stated as follows: That man and monkey are so 
much alike that man must have come from some sort of 
remote monkey ancestor. Thus, the argument from re- 
semblance is to the effect that similarity argues oneness of 

83 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


original parentage, that similarity in structure and organic 
function is proof of common descent. 

But in the name of all logic and all common sense and 
of sound reason, even granting for the sake of argument 
that such resemblances do exist, do they really prove the 
astounding conclusions that are founded upon them? I 
emphatically and without fear of successful contradiction 
declare that they do not. Resemblance proves nothing 
but resemblance. Similarity proves nothing but simi- 
larity. 

For example, I myself have been often accused of 
resembling ex-President Woodrow Wilson. I do not 
know whether our honored ex-President was ever 
given the affront of being told that he looks like me or 
not. If so, he possibly felt like one of the two friends 
who were given to joking each other because of their 
homeliness. They met on the street one day and one said 
to the other: “Jim, I met a man today who told me that 
I looked like you.” Whereupon Jim doubled up his fist 
and said: “Where is the scoundrel? I want to maul 
him.” “Oh,” replied his friend, “you can’t maul him. 
I killed him!’ Seriously, my friends, I have been mis- 
taken again and again for Woodrow Wilson, and once, 
while living in Baltimore, soon after Mr. Wilson married 
his second wife, Mrs. Straton and I together were mis- 
taken for the President and Mrs. Wilson at a musical 
concert in the Lyric Theatre. 

I submit that the argument of the evolutionists from 
resemblance proves only resemblance and not succession 
of descent. I have not descended from Woodrow Wil- 
son, and I feel very sure that, staid Presbyterian that 
he is, he would emphatically disclaim any kinship what- 
ever with a militant Baptist parson! 

There are so many dissimilarities between man and 
the apes that the similarities are negligible—especially is 

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IN THE NEGATIVE 


this true in the realm of the mind, the moral and religious 
instincts, etc. 

Virchow said: “The differences between man and 
monkey are so wide that almost any fragment is suffi- 
cient to diagnose them” (“Smithsonian Report,” 1889, 
page 5606). 


RUDIMENTARY AND VESTIGIAL ORGANS 


So, also, as to rudimentary or unused organs that are 
found in man and lower animals alike, and that my 
opponent discussed. They really prove nothing but 
resemblance, and no man can say that they are not really 
useful. 

As we begin to push back the borders of our ignorance 
about these things light breaks in upon us. Professor 
Arthur Keith, in his address as President of the An- 
thropological Section of the British Association, meeting 
at Bournemouth (“Smithsonian Report,’ I9g1I9, page 
448), said: 


“We have hitherto regarded the pineal gland, little bigger 
than a wheat grain and buried deeply in the brain, as a mere 
useless vestige of a median or parietal eye, derived from 
some distant human ancestor in whom that eye was func- 
tional, but on the clinical and experimental evidence now 
rapidly accumulating we must assign to it a place in the 
machinery which controls the growth of the body.” 


Of the thyroid gland, whose removal entails myxoe- 
dema, Huxley said: “The recent discovery of the impor- 
tant part played by the thyroid gland should be a warning 
to all speculators about useless organs.” 

And as for my opponent’s references to Mr. Bryan’s 
anatomy, I must express my surprise that he assailed 
our great commoner after that fashion when he is not 
here to defend his own tail! 

Prof. A. Wilford Hall, in “The Problem of Human 
Life,” so tersely refutes these false theories, that 1 must 

85 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


quote him. On page 374: “Now, as regards the ‘little tail 
of man,’ about which Prof. Haeckel and Mr. Darwin have 
so much to say, and which is regarded by all evolutionists 
as such a powerful proof of man’s descent from tailed 
ancestors, I wish to remark that a more manifest and 
inexcusable misconception was never harbored by men.” 
Then the author goes on to state that the spine in all 
vertebrates develops first and the end protrudes until the 
fleshy portion develops to cover it. The fish, which 
according to evolution, did not have a tailed animal for 
an ancestor, also has this embryonic tail. Thus, the whole 
theory breaks down. 


CLIMBING OUR OWN ANCESTRAL TREE 


The same general arguments apply to embryology in 
other respects also. It has been found that embryos of 
different forms of life are somewhat alike. Therefore, it 
is argued that they all came from some original common 
ancestor. Furthermore, it is known that the human 
embryo passes through several distinct stages in its de- 
velopment, and it is claimed by some that these stages 
recapitulate the steps in the alleged evolutionary journey 
of the race upward from the original protoplasm to man. 
Haeckel confidently asserted these claims. He even named 
this process the “biogenetic law.” He had us climbing 
our own family tree while we were still embryos! 

I pointed out, in the beginning, that this is all nothing 
more than assumption and, as Osborn put it, lies in the 
realm of “pure speculation” and not of demonstrated fact. 
I now point out, further, that the idea that man has 
evolved from lower forms of life because the human 
embryo passes through a series of stages which are sup- 
posed to reflect the several stages in evolution, is not 
consistent with the accepted principles of the evolutionary 
hypothesis. for one thing, as to the rate of develop- 
ment, evolution presupposes a slow and tedious process 

86 


IN THE NEGATIVE 


covering, as Wells and Osborn and all of the others of 
them say, “millions and millions and millions of years.” 
But the human embryo passes through its stages of de- 
velopment with tremendous rapidity, and in the case of 
the embryos of some other forms of life the progress is 
so rapid that it seems almost miraculous. The evolu- 
tionary hypothesis, therefore, which scorns miracles in 
other fields, cannot invoke a sustaining miracle in its own 
behalf and to prove its own claim. These ideas have 
long since been exploded. 

An object lesson is sometimes most useful in bringing 
to our minds a conclusive demonstration of truth. I 
have brought down tonight and I hold here in my hands 
two victrola records. They are exactly alike. They are 
made of precisely the same material. They weigh the 
same. They are the same shape. Their circumference 
and diameter are identical, and even if you look at them 
through the microscope you see the same succession of 
little scratches and indentations upon both of them. And 
yet if I put one of these on a victrola it produces an 
inspiring solo from Caruso’s glorious voice. If I put 
the other on the victrola it produces one of the disgusting 
pieces of ragtime jazz which libels the holy name of 
music today. What does it mean? It means, my friends, 
that the resemblances between the two victrola records 
are merely superficial resemblances at non-essential points. 
It means that the essential characters of the two records 
are vitally different, and the final result from them con- 
clusively proves that. While they look alike and feel alike 
and are the same size, etc., nevertheless, they are in 
essential nature absolutely and radically unlike. 

Now I submit that the argument is conclusive that the 
same thing is true as regards the similarity between the 
human embryo and the embryos of the lower animals. 
The two are absolutely different and distinct in essential 


nature. They are vitally different one from the other, 
87 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


despite surface resemblances, and, as with the victrola 
records, the final results from the two forms of embryo 
establish the fact that they are essentially different from 
each other even while still embryos. Professor Fair- 
hurst, in his notable book “Organic Evolution Con- 
sidered,’ states the case clearly and conclusively. He 
says: 

“Taking the embryos of man and fish the argument of the 
evolutionist is as follows: The embryos of man and fish, at 
a certain stage of development, are closely alike in appear- 
ance; therefore, man and fish had a common ancestral 
origin. The conclusion which the evolutionist draws is 
based upon a mere seeming and very transient resemblance, 
while the fact that the two embryos are essentially unlike 
is shown by the vast distance apart at which they arrive 
by development. ... The egg which can be developed into 
aman is just as different in nature from the egg of a fish as 
the man is from the fish. The eggs are essentially unlike. 
The essential qualities of eggs are beyond the power of the 
miscroscope to reveal. The human embryo is produced by 
human beings only; and whatever may be its miscroscopic 
appearance, it is at every stage of its development strictly 
human. Embryology, as applied to evolution, fails in that 
it deals only with the surface of things.” 


I submit that there is no possible rational reply to his 
conclusion. Embryology has been considered one of the 
very strongest arguments for evolution, and yet in the 
face of the real facts, it breaks down completely. 

Indeed some of the facts as already remarked in con- 
nection with the time element, are really the reverse of 
what the theory of evolution calls for. So far as the 
human embryo is concerned, it is now admitted that the 
entire first half of the supposed evolutionary progression 
is not repeated at all. In speaking upon this point, Pro- 
fessor Fairhurst says (“Organic Evolution Considered,” 
page 147): 

“There are radical differences between the embryos of 

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IN THE NEGATIVE 


vertebrates and invertebrates. Worms and other articulates 
in embryo lie doubled backwards around the yolk, while all 
vertebrates are doubled in the opposite direction. Accord- 
ing to the theory that the embryonic condition is a recapitu- 
lation of the stages of organic evolution, this fundamental 
fact of invertebrate embryology ought to have been pre- 
served by the vertebrate. Evolution gives no account of 
this reversal of position by the vertebrates.” 


The author of the article on Embryology in the Ency- 
clopedia Britannica, Oskar Heurtwig, Erich Wasmann, 
and other embryologists have completely shattered the 
“fish-like gill slits’ of the human embryo, and other 
similar false inductions from embryology. 


WHY GOD MADE ANIMALS LIKE MAN 


Is there, then, any rational way to account for the 
resemblances between man and the lower animals? Yes 
there is. It is the fact of creation of all by one God. 
This resemblance of parts is just what we should expect 
in things originating from one intelligent operator, 
whether Creator or manufacturer. It is found in every 
factory. The wheel is the same in the wheelbarrow, the 
cart, the carriage and the locomotive. In fact, uniformity 
of plan proves unity in the cause, and not the diversity 
which chance evolution would necessitate. The Bible 
teaches that God made the lower animals before he made 
man. We may regard them, in a way, as understudies. 
Every sculptor makes models before he carves his final 
statue—so, perhaps, God made the lower animals. He 
found that a heart and circulatory system, lungs, brain, 
etc., all worked well. Looking with satisfaction upon 
these dumb creatures he had made, we may imagine Him 
saying: “Now, let us make man in our image, after our 
likeness!’ The mere fact that all forms of animals have 
to breathe air and exist on the same sort of food largely 
necessitates more or less similarity between them. 

89 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


THE ARGUMENT FROM GEOLOGY, THE ROCKS AND FOSSILS 


The other great argument for evolution has been the 
argument from the rocks and fossils:—the argument 
from geology and paleontology. The argument here is 
that there has been a succession and ascent of life up to, 
and including man through lower forms of life, because 
of a succession of fossil life forms, which it is alleged 
are found in the rocks of the geological eras. 

Dr. T. H. Morgan, of Columbia University, rests his 
faith in the theory of evolution on this geological foun- 
dation. He says: 

“The direct evidence furnished by fossil remains is 
by all odds the strongest evidence we have in favor of 
organic evolution.” 

My opponent spoke with great confidence and assur- 
ance on this subject of the rocks, the “ancient life,” in 
them, etc. But it is not true, as he asserts, that these 
matters are settled and proved. On the other hand, 
the methods and data on which the scientists ground the 
calculations behind their guesses and hypotheses are fre- 
quently so flimsy as to be utterly untrustworthy, espe- 
cially as a foundation for sweeping aside the age-long 
faith of the race in the Bible as God’s word, and in 
substituting for it the dogmas of speculative philosophy, 
and of what the Bible itself terms “science, falsely so 
called.” 

I wish to point out, in the beginning, that geologists and 
evolutionists who rely upon geology, convict themselves 
of begging the question or arguing in a circle. You ask 
the geologist, “How do you determine the age of the rocks 
and arrange your scheme of stratified rocks?” He 
answers: “Why, by the fossils that are in the rocks. We 
know that the simpler forms of life came first, and when 
we find these simpler forms in a given stratum of rock, 
we know, thereby, that that sort of stratum is the oldest.” 
You ask the evolutionist upon what he founds his theory 

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IN THE NEGATIVE 


of the succession of life, beginning with simple forms, 
coming up to the more complex and culminating in man, 
and he answers: “Why I found my conclusion on the 
record of the rocks. The simplest forms of life are 
found as fossils in the oldest rocks, and the more complex 
forms of life in the more recent rock formations, etc.” 
Here, then, I submit, you have a complete case of beg- 
ging the question or arguing in a circle. On both sides 
they assume the very thing that is to be proved. The 
geologist says the oldest rocks are the oldest because the 
simplest forms of life are in them. The evolutionist says 
that evolution is true because the simplest forms of life 
are in the oldest rocks. There could not be a more com- 
plete case of arguing in a circle, and neither argument, 
therefore, can be of any force. 


FRAGMENTARY AND INADEQUATE EVIDENCE 


Not only is this true, but the scientists themselves 
admit that the fossil remains and the evidences of evolu- 
tion from the rocks are really fragmentary and obscure 
in the extreme. So much so, that thoughtful observers 
are more and more having to reject such evidence. When 
confronted with the absurdity of their evidence, in fact 
the practically complete absence of any evidence, the 
evolutionists fall back upon the incompleteness of the 
geological record. They say that there is evidence to 
support evolution if they could only find it. Darwin, 
again and again, so pleaded on behalf of his theory. He 
said : 

“Looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory 
be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking closely 
together all the species of the same group, must assuredly 
have existed; but the very process of natural selection con- 
stantly tends, as has been so often remarked, to exterminate 
the parent-forms and the intermediate links. Consequently, 
evidence of their former existence could be found only 
among fossil remains, which are preserved, as we shall at- 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


tempt to show in a future chapter, in an extremely imperfect 
and intermittent record” (page 184, “Origin of Species’). 


Darwin admits that there are some two or three million 
different species on the earth, and he tried bravely to get 
over the tremendous fact that no missing links between 
any of these species have been found. He says that the 
number of these intermediate varieties which have for- 
merly existed must be “truly enormous,” and then he 
appeals to the imperfection of the geological record to 
account for the overwhelming fact that none of them 
have been found. He says: 


“Why then.is not every geological formation and every 
stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly 
does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; 
and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objec- 
tion which can be urged against the theory. The explanation 
lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geolog- 
ical record” (page 334, “Origin of the Species”). 


The evolutionists, then, are like a litigant who comes 
into court with strong and positive evidence against him, 
but who says that while he has no evidence in his favor, 
nevertheless, such evidence ought to exist and no doubt 
does exist, but he has never been able to find it, despite 
diligent search; and yet, while he has no evidence, and 
while his opponent has strong evidence, nevertheless, he 
ought to be given the verdict because of his undiscovered 
evidence. 


NO ‘‘MISSING LINKS” 


Furthermore, the alleged ‘“‘missing links’ evidence is 
utterly inadequate and even laughably absurd. If the 
principle of evolution were true there would not only be 
missing links in the fossils, just as Darwin had to admit, 
but there ought to be living links on every side around 
us today. Instead of fixed species, with their several 
varieties, we would have a heterogeneous mess of living 

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IN THE NEGATIVE 


forms upon the earth, each grading into the other. We 
would have budding legs and developing eyes and sprout- 
ing wings and other transitional forms all around us. 
For if it is true, then upon its fundamental principle of 
conformity, evolution ought to be still in progress on 
every side. Herbert Spencer gives away the case, in fact, 
by admitting this. In his work on “Ethics,” in speaking 
of further social evolution which may be anticipated, he 
lays down a principle which must apply to all phases of 
evolution, including organic evolution. He says: 


“Tt seems not only rational to believe in some further 
evolution, but irrational to doubt it; irrational to suppose 
that the causes which have in the past worked such won- 
derful effects will in the future work no effects.” 


Precisely so, and if evolution were true we would see 
it in progress on every side. What we do see, however, 
is not the development of one species into another, but a 
fixity of species which is guarded by the universal law 
of sterility. Even branch varieties of the same species 
produce only hybrids when they are crossed. 


THE APE-MEN 


Now, we find the same striking limits to species when 
we turn to the fossils in the rocks. No “missing links” 
connecting one species with others have ever been dis- 
covered, and the scientists in their frantic efforts and deep 
desire to find such links, in order that they might prove 
the evolutionary hypothesis, have been at times pathetic 
and at times amusing. 

Take, for example, the so-called ape-men, the alleged 
missing links, replicas of which we find in the humorous 
department of the American Museum of Natural His- 
tory, namely, the “Hall of the Age of Man.” As for 
the alleged ape-men or “missing links,” they are few in 
numbers and far between. Even Prof. Osborn has to 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


admit this. He says in his little book on “The Hall of 
the Age of Man”: 


“Five cases in the center hall are devoted to the story of 
man, and that it can be compressed into so small a space is 
an indication of the scarcity of his remains, for here are 
displayed reproductions of all of the notable specimens that 
have been discovered” (Leaflet No. 52, page 3). 


Well, if evolution is a universal law, working in all 
past time and everywhere, why is there such a scarcity? 
And even in the case of the few so-called specimens they 
have, only minute bits of bone were found in each in- 
stance, and from these small fragments, imaginary re-cre- 
ations have been made, and even then the scientists did 
not agree among themselves as to just how the restored 
men should have looked. 

These so-called “ape-men”’ are figments of the heated 
and overly enthusiastic imagination of evolution’s dev- 
otees. The “Piltdown man,’ for example, was no 
“man” at all. All that they found in the gravel pit in 
Sussex, England, near Piltdown Common, were two or 
three bits of skull-bone, a piece of jaw-bone, and a 
canine tooth. And these few fragments were not found 
all together and at one time by the same person. They 
were scattered widely in the gravel pit, some of them were 
found by one person and others by another person, and 
some of them were found in one year and others in an- 
other year. With these few little scraps, that a juggler 
could conceal in the palm of one hand, and found under 
these loose conditions, the scientists “reconstructed” the 
“Piltdown man” and proclaimed it as a new genus, which 
they called Eoanthropus or ““Dawn-man,” and they named 
the species ““Dawsoni” in honor of Mr. Dawson, the Eng- 
lish scientist. But after the first reconstruction by Dawson 
and Dr. A. Smith Woodward of the British Museum, 
Prof. Arthur Keith, Curator of the Royal College of 
Surgeons of London, took up these fragments of bone and 

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IN THE NEGATIVE 


made a reconstructed man much higher than the ape-like 
creature that Drs. Dawson and Woodward had produced. 
Prof. Keith declared that the capacity of the Piltdown 
skull was nearer 1500 c.c. than 1070 as Dawson and 
Woodward had made it. And the climax was capped 
when Prof. Hrdlicka reached the conclusion that the 
Piltdown jaw and tooth did not belong with the frag- 
ments of skull at all but really “belonged to a fossil 
chimpanzee.” 


THE GREATEST HOAX OF ALL 


And as for the “Java Ape-man,”’ the case is even worse. 
Dr. Eugene Dubois, a Dutch physician, claimed to have 
found these bones in the Island of Java in 1891, but 
scientists have been suspicious about the genuineness of 
the find. There are only three fragments of this gentle- 
man—the Java, or Trinil, Ape-man who, as mentioned by 
my opponent, has been given the overwhelming name 
“Pithecanthropus.”’ ‘There is a part of a skull, a part of 
a femur bone, and one molar tooth. The bones were not 
found at the same time or altogether in one place. The 
femur bone was found a year after the bit of skull was 
picked up. The bones were scattered far apart in a gravel 
pit on the bank of a rushing stream. The femur bone was 
fifty feet from where the skull was found. When Dr. 
Dubois discovered these pitiful bits of bones he announced 
his belief that they belonged to a being between the man 
apes and men. 

Other scientists, however, who examined these bones 
asserted that the fragments did not belong to the same 
individual at all. The geologist, Dana, took the position 
that the bones, if they belonged to the same individual, 
belonged to a low-grade man or to an idiot. Virchow 
rejected them, and finally, another authority of the first 
rank, Prof. Klaatsch of Heidelberg University, declared 
that the creature was no missing link at all. And ina 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


recent magazine article, to top the whole matter off, one 
of our American writers, as before intimated, throws a 
doubt upon the honesty and genuineness of the frag- 
ments. 

And yet the authorities at the Museum have made up 
not only a cast of this imaginary creature, but a bronze 
bust, and he is shown to our school children as one of 
the links in the ascent of man! 

And as for the few other alleged specimens in the 
“Hall of the Age of Man,” a few words will suffice. As 
for the “Heidelberg man,” nothing of him except a piece 
of jaw-bone was found. He is one-half of one per cent. 
original and 99% per cent “restoration.” 

The case is as bad with the others. The Neanderthal 
skull has provoked from competent authorities a dozen 
or more opinions concerning itself. Here are a few: the 
skull belonged to a human idiot (Blake, Vogt, Hoelder, 
Zittel) ; to an old Celt; to an old Hollander; to an old 
Frieslander, and last, but not least, to a Mongolian Cos- 
sack of the year 1814. It was of these remains that 
Huxley said: 


“In no sense can the Neanderthal bones be regarded as 
the remains of a human being intermediate between men and 
apes.” 

Dr. Thomas Dwight, Parkman professor of anatomy 
in Harvard University, says: 


“The Neanderthal man is not a specimen of a race ar- 
rested in its upward climb, but rather of a race thrown 
down from a still higher position.” 


The “Cro-Magnon” man proves nothing, as it is ad- 
mitted that he is not a “missing link,” but is the equal of 
men of today. 

Then there is the Talgai skull, still shown in the case 
at the museum, but about which little is said these days, 
and rightly so. For Mr. Archibald Meston, of Australia, 

96 


IN THE NEGATIVE 


former Chief Protector of Aborigines, has shown that 
it is the skull of one of the Australian black boys shot 
and buried on the spot in 1848. 

I have been many times in the American Museum of 
Natural History. It is a great and wonderful institution, 
and there is much of first-rate interest and value to be 
seen there. But frankly, the “Hall of the Age of Man,” 
as before suggested, ought to be labelled “Our Humorous 
Department.” 

I was up there a little while ago for a long period with 
Dr. William Gregory, Dr. Osborn’s right-hand man, 
and a professor in Columbia University. 

I asked Prof. Gregory, after we had gone over the 
data about the Java Ape-man, how old scientists estimated 
these fossils were, and he told me that the estimate was 
500,000 years. I now ask the judges and this audience, 
as I asked Prof. Gregory, if any thoughtful mind can 
really believe that those old bones laid there undisturbed, 
right beside what is now a rushing stream, for 500,000 
years? Is it not the most remote chance, in the face 
of earthquakes, fire, and flood, and the radical changes 
in climate and condition through which our earth has 
been known to pass, that for 500,000 years of time those 
old bones, which were assumed to belong to the same 
individual in the beginning, had really stayed in that one 
position? 

This, then, is the “evidence,” so far as “missing links” 
are concerned, of the evolution of man from the beasts. 
That idea is a libel on man, and an insult to Almighty 
God. So fragmentary and unreliable is this “evidence” 
that no judge or jury would convict even a horse-thief 
on such evidence, and certainly we ought not on it to 
convict man of a brute ancestry or convict the Bible of 
lying. I verily believe that if the little basketful of musty 
old bones and fossils, which have been found, after all 
these years of search in every part of the world, were 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


brought together and presented as evidence for the evolu- 
tion of man in any court of law, they would be thrown 
out of court with utmost scorn by judge and jury alike. 
They are simply not evidence according to any rules of 
evidence, either in law or true science. 


ARTIFICIALITY OF THE GEOLOGICAL SCHEME 


Not only is their alleged evidence utterly fragmentary 
and entirely inadequate, according to the admissions of 
Darwin, Osborn, and other scientists themselves, but it 
has now been demonstrated, as a result of recent research 
in the field of geology, that the whole arrangement of the 
rocks im the old geological scheme ts altogether artificial, 
contrary to now known facts, and, therefore, that it 
must be repudiated entirely. I do not have to argue this 
matter, but will leave it to the most up-to-date voice of 
science itself. I have here the very latest book on geology. 
It is just off the press. It is called ‘““The New Geology,” 
and it is by Prof. George McCready Price, Professor of 
Geology in Union College, Nebraska. Prof. Price is a 
member of the American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science, and other scientific societies. For over 
twenty years he has been engaged in gathering the data 
for this great and monumental book. The very name of 
the book is significant. It is “The New Geology,” and 
Prof. Price argues that the time has come when the entire 
science of geology will have to be made over on a new 
and really scientific basis. He shows from facts gathered 
in every part of the world, accompanied by adequate 
diagrams, tables and beautiful illustrations, that the ar- 
rangement of the different sorts of rocks by the older 
geologists is not only a purely artificial and arbitrary 
scheme, but that the facts that have been discovered since 
that artificial arrangement of the rocks was worked out, 
utterly overthrow the whole scheme. 

He shows that the stratified beds containing the fossils 

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are, as he puts it, “of quite limited extent, varying from 
a few square yards or a few acres, to a few hundred 
square miles in area,” at most. He shows us from the 
facts, that the old “onion-coat” theory of the building 
up of the strata—the only logical theory, by the way, if 
evolution were really true—is not only utterly smashed 
to pieces and given up by scientists, but that their de- 
pendence upon these fragmentary beds has had to be 
given up because, as he says: “The various kinds of 
fossils, which were so long thought to be found only in 
the same relative order all over the globe wherever they 
occur, are now known to occur in practically every con- 
ceivable order” (Pages 17-18). 


MAKING “FACTS” FIT 


Instead of the older rocks being at the bottom, with 
the most primitive forms of fossils, and then the 
slightly less old on top of those, with the slightly 
higher fossil forms, and then the less old on top of that, 
and so on until the “younger” rocks, with the highly 
complex forms of life of recent times, on top, as was 
argued by my opponent, and as should be the case if there 
had been an orderly evolution, and if the different forms 
of life starting in remote ages had fallen down into the 
soil and been caught in the stratification as the deposits 
were made, and so on up to the age of man and his fossil 
remains, which should be right on the top of the whole 
series,—instead of all of this, Prof. Price shows that often 
the so-called oldest rocks are right on top of the strata and 
the so-called youngest are down at the bottom. He shows 
that some of the oldest rock stratas are up at the top of 
mountains, for example, and the youngest forms are down 
at the bottom of the mountains, and all in perfect order. 
He gives instances of this reverse order in stretches of 
territory in Europe and America, some of them as much 
as 1,800 miles long, containing as much as 20,000 square 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


miles of territory, making the thought of an “over-thrust”’ 
impossible. He shows that these examples of reverse 
strata are found almost everywhere, a notable one begin- 
ning in our own state of New York, and running away 
up into Canada. 

And upon these undeniable facts, written in the record 
of the rocks themselves, and now discovered by fuller 
research, he reaches his conclusion, namely, that the old 
order of the rocks, as classified, have been thus classified 
in a fanciful and* unnatural manner, because of the 
dominating prejudices in favor of the evolutionary 
theory. He says: 

“The dominant idea, of course, in the minds of those who 
arranged the geological series was the evolution theory re- 
garding the development of life, and this theory is embalmed 
in the arrangement which was thus made.” 

He shows how the arrangement was rearranged from 
time to time, known facts being made to fit into the sub- 
jective scheme of evolution. ‘Therefore, he reaches his 
conclusion and says: 

“In many ways, the current system of geological classi- 
fication seems absurd for those who realize the fanciful— 


we might almost say, the farcical—character of the reasons 
behind such an arrangement” (Page 283). 


He further says: 


“We could arrange all the books in a library according 
to their titles, from A, B, and C, down to X, Y, and Z; but 
it would be a purely artificial scheme, and to say that this 
arrangement proved that the books arranged under A, B, 
and C must have been written and published long before 
those arranged under X, Y, and Z, would be absurd” 


(Page 19). 
GEOLOGICAL FACTS AGAINST EVOLUTION 


Prof. Price, therefore, as a result of his investigations 
in the field of geology, as well as of embryology and the 
other sciences involved in the theory of evolution, reaches 

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IN THE NEGATIVE 


in this great book the definite conclusion that the theory 
of evolution is not only unproved but that it is demon- 
strably false. He says, explicitly: 

“The net results of all modern scientific investigation seem 
to be that the plants and animals now alive could never have 
originated by any such method of gradual development as 
has been pictured to us in the name of natural science. 
Certain it is that modern biology, and geology also, for 
that matter, have simply developed a complete negative 
demonstration against the easy assumptions of the earlier 
scientists that plants and animals probably originated by a 
gradual progression from the lower to the higher types by 
processes similar to those which are now going on” (Page 
606). 

In the light of the undeniable geological facts which 
have now been assembled, Prof. Price, therefore for- 
mulates “The great law of conformable stratigraphic 
sequence,” which, he says, may be stated as follows: 

“Any kind of fossiliferous bed whatever, ‘young’ or ‘old,’ 


may be found occurring conformably on any other fos- 
siliferous beds, ‘older’ or ‘younger.’ ” 


Then he adds: 


“This law forever puts an end to all evolutionary specu- 
lations about the order in which the various plants and 
animals have developed, in the minds of those who are 
correctly informed regarding these facts. This law alone 
is quite sufficient to relegate the whole theory of organic 
evolution to the lumber room of science, there to become 
the amusement of the future students of the history of 
cosmological speculations’ (Page 638). 

These, then, are the conclusions of a thoroughly up-to- 
date scientist, in the light of well-known and most recent 
facts. 


FALSIFYING “‘FACTS”’ 


Indeed, so flimsy are the alleged “facts”? which have 
been assembled to bolster up the tottering theories of 
evolution, that some of its zealots have resorted to actual 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


falsification in their efforts to make good on their 
theories. 

Ernest Haeckel, for example, was caught falsifying, 
schematizing and forging certain diagrams by which he 
was endeavoring to prove his evolutionary theory. He 
was tried by the Jena University Court and the charge 
against him was proved. In reply, he said: 


“T should feel utterly condemned and annihilated by the 
admission, were it not that hundreds of the best observers 
and most reputable biologists lie under the same charge. 
The great majority of all morphological, anatomical, his- 
tological and embryological diagrams are not true to nature 
but are more or less doctored, schematized and recon- 
structed.” 


No wonder, therefore, that Professor Price, in speak- 
ing of the frantic way in which the evolutionists twist 
and stretch everywhere in their effort to make facts fit 
in with their fancies, says: | 

“The astonishment which I feel is due to the amazing 
power of a preconceived theory to blind the eyes and stultify 
the reasoning power of the shrewdest observer when con- 


fronted with a series of facts for which their theory has 
made no provision.” 


In reaching these conclusions, Dr. Price is merely mov- 
ing in line with other great scientists and thinkers who 
have been forced finally to reject evolution. Sir J. 
William Dawson, the great geologist of Canada, utterly 
rejected it and says: “It is one of the strangest phenomena 
of humanity; it is utterly destitute of proof’ (Story of 
the Earth and Man, page 317). 


UNDERSTANDABLE SOLUTIONS 


There are rational and easy ways of accounting for 
the phenomena of the fossils in the rocks and other such 
problems. ‘The fossil remains of the lower and simpler 
forms of life found in some geological beds, are easily 

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IN THE NEGATIVE 


accounted for because of the well-known fact, that lower 
forms of life live for the most part in shallow water or 
at the edge of the sea, while the vertebrates, the fish and 
the great sea monsters, live in the deep water. Walk 
along the sea shore today and you will find the simple 
shell fish, the little fiddler crabs, and other simple forms 
of life there in the shallow water, and then you will look 
out and see the whales spouting several miles at sea. If, 
therefore, the animal life in one section of the sea, with 
its shore, were to be now changed into fossils, and these 
fossils should be discovered in some after age, the dis- 
coverers would find the remains of the simple forms of 
life in one place and the remains of higher forms—fish 
and other sea monsters—in another part. 

Furthermore, just as we see around us today different 
forms of life, from the simplest one-cell animal up to and 
including all the other animals and human forms, living 
side by side, so the simplest forms of animals and human 
life lived side by side in the ages that are gone. There is 
absolutely not one scintilla of proof from real facts that 
the lower forms of life came first on this earth, or the 
higher forms evolved out of the lower. 

It has been claimed that we can arrange the past races 
in an ascending order as they worked in stone, bronze or 
iron, in their successive history. This is a false theory. 
We have all these “ages” existing today. On the other 
hand Dr. Livingstone found no stone age in Africa. Dr. 
Schliemann found in the ruins of Troy the bronze age 
below the stone age. The early Egyptians used bronze, 
the later ones stone tools. In the Chaldean tombs all 
these are found together. Europe had the metal age 
while America had the stone age (“Creation and Evolu- 
tion,’ by Prof. Townsend). 

Professor Price, in his great book from which I have 
before quoted, because of the now known facts, there- 
fore, reaches the conclusions which I gave from him. Not 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


only so, but he goes further still and gives facts which 
demonstrate that there has been a great universal catas- 
trophe, which overwhelmed most of the life whose fossil 
forms we now find. He gives, for example, the fact that 
mighty schools of fish are found today embedded in rock 
strata as fossils, and he shows that there is absolutely no 
evidence that these fish quietly sank down into the mud, 
and that sediment through long periods of time formed 
about them. On the other hand, he shows that the fossils 
of the fish are found. with all their fins extended, which is 
always the case when they die suddenly. He, therefore, 
shows that the wild guesses about the time required for 
the formation of the rock stratifications, the fossils, etc., 
is absolutely exaggerated, and he takes his position with 
Dawson and other geologists upon this matter of the 
time. His argument is overwhelming, that the phenomena 
which we find in connection with the fossils in the earth, 
are all to be accounted for most rationally on the ground 
that there was a universal deluge, arising, as he points 
out, perhaps, because of the change in the inclination of 
the earth’s axis to the plane of its orbit, which change 
sent great floods of water, tidal waves, sweeping in from 
the sea, overwhelming all forms of life and piling mud 
and sediment upon them, which in the course of time 
changed into coal and rock. 

This great scientist, with many others, therefore, is 
led back to the account of the Bible teaching about the 
deluge and the other facts that go with the whole record 
of Bible truth. 


POSITIVE FACTS PROVING THAT THE EARTH AND MAN 
DID NOT COME BY EVOLUTION 


Having shown from the admissions of the scientists 
themselves, and also from known facts, that the earth 
and man did not come by evolution, I wish now to present 
certain concrete facts which show that evolution is not 

{O4 


IN THE NEGATIVE 


only unproved but that it is unprovable and impossible 
as a theory to account for the origin of the earth and 
man. 

. If evolution is true, then we have two mutually 
self. contradictory and conflicting forces at work—one 
to preserve species without change, and the other to con- 
stantly change the species. Both of these things cannot 
be true. 

2. There is no natural or “spontaneous generation.” 

Having no real knowledge about the origin of life, the 
scientists first tried to make out a case for “spontaneous 
generation”; but they utterly failed in this, and had them- 
selves to disallow this theory. The very term “spontane- 
ous generation” is a begging of the question by evolu- 
tionists. It assumes the very thing that is to be proved. 

As we know the world now, matter and spirit, are two 
absolutely different things. They are as wide as the 
poles apart. Mud and mire and slime and stone are not 
only totally dissimilar from reason, and hope and faith 
and love, but they cannot in anyway be compared one 
with the other. 

If, then, we are told they were originally one,—that the 
first life germ awoke out of dead matter, we naturally 
look for clear and overwhelming facts to prove such an 
incredible miracle. But no such facts are forthcoming 
from evolution, and it has to be reluctantly admitted by 
the evolutionists. 

Since, then, spontaneous generation of life is con- 
fessedly impossible, and therefore did not occur, we are 
driven back to accept the only other alternative, namely, 
the creative agency of a Living God. 

3. Furthermore, since “evolution” means an unfolding 
or unrolling, it is self-evident that whatever is evolved 
must first have been involved. Our accepted definition 
is that evolution is by “resident forces.’ No creative 
forces therefore, can be allowed anywhere along the 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


upward path of the alleged evolution. All must come 
from within. That means that in the first life cell, germ, 
or protoplasm which appeared on this planet, all the 
phenomena, wonders, and glories of all after-life were 
potentially contained. This is too much to believe. 


REPRODUCTION BEFORE EVOLUTION 


Not only that, but on this whole matter of the alleged 
evolution of life, I wish to point out another most sig- 
nificant and really conclusive fact. 

It is self-evident that there could be no evolution with- 
out the power of reproduction in living things. Since, 
then, reproduction is a prior condition to evolution, it, 
therefore, cannot be the product of evolution. Hence, 
we face the logical necessity for direct creation as a 
start for all developing life. 

Furthermore, the power of reproduction is not in the 
embryo but only in the mature parent. Therefore, a 
parent form of life must have been created in the begin- 
ning to have produced the embryo from which offspring 
alone can come. 

An egg does not produce an egg. It produces a 
chicken, and that produces another egg which produces 
another chicken, and so on and on. Not only is it true, 
however, that an embryo cannot produce an embryo, but 
it is also true that an embryo is not improvable. Im- 
provement can come only in the matured form, and not 
in the germ or single life-cell, or embryo. The simplest 
form of multiplying life is the amoeba. The amoeba 
multiplies its kind, not through an embryo, but by divid- 
ing itself and thus forming into two amoebas, and they 
in turn divide and form into others, and thus multiply. 
But the two amoebas that came from the single amoeba 
are each exactly like the first amoeba. They have no 
resident force of self-improvement. The most serious 
obstacle in the way of the theory of ascending life is the 

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IN THE NEGATIVE 


impossibility of explaining how the so-called protozoa— 
minute animals composed of a single cell,—ever passed 
into the metazoa,—animals composed of many cells. 
Nothing but evasion and the most impossible guesses 
has ever bridged this chasm in life’s alleged development. 

Since, then, the power of reproduction is not in the 
embryo or single life cell, and since the embryo is not 
improvable but only the mature product, therefore, life 
could not have developed by evolution. The proposition 
that life started from a single cell, which in some unex- 
plained way awoke out of dead matter, is utterly unten- 
able and irrational. The first protoplasmic life cell 
would either have died because of the harsh and inhos- 
pitable conditions around it, or if it had lived it could 
have had no power of reproduction, as it was only a cell 
or embryo. And even if it is conceived of as having the 
power of increasing by division like the amoeba, it could 
only have produced other amoebas, and they in turn 
others, so that the only form of life on the earth would 
have been amoebas. 

Since, then, these low forms of life have no resident 
power of self-improvement, therefore, we are again 
driven to the plan of outside forces operating upon them 
to produce higher and more complex forms of life. But 
that is a violation of evolution, according to our accepted 
definition, and therefore, we are driven again to accept 
creation, or the operation of a Power outside of the 
original life forms, to account for all living things. 

4. The human mind is not simply greater in degree 
than that of the lower animals, but is generically different 
in kind. This cannot be harmonized with the theory of 
evolution, and points to direct creative power. 

The distinctive characteristics and capacities of man, 
especially his moral and religious endowments, are so 
impossible of explanation by the theory of evolution, 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


that truth demands recognition of direct creative purpose 
and power in explanation of man’s origin and progress. 


DEGENERATION VS. EVOLUTION 


5. Many other positive facts could be cited disproving 
evolution—I point out only one more, namely, degenera- 
tion rather than evolution. There are ample grounds for 
the belief that both vegetable and animal life is in a process 
of degeneration and decay on this planet, rather than a 
process of evolution and improvement. 

And this only goes to prove the teaching of the Bible 
that man is a fallen being and that, therefore, the world 
is moving toward judgment and the final re-creation of 
all things in a “new heaven and a new earth, wherein 
dwelleth righteousness.” 

There is such a thing as evolution of a kind in human 
affairs, but this also only proves that man is a fallen 
being who is frantically struggling to regain a lost estate. 


A RATIONAL VIEW 


Is there, then, any escape from these contradictions 
and absurdities into which speculative philosophy and an 
essentially godless materialism would plunge us? Is 
there any solid ground on which we can build our lives 
and found our hope of immortality? 

Yes, I answer, with all confidence, there is ample 
ground. There are ways very near at hand by which we 
can solve the riddle of the universe and know the nature 
and destiny of man. 

I appeal first to a right view of the material world as 
a whole. The Bible says: “Speak to the earth, and it 
will teach you.” When we view nature as a whole, and 
not in little scraps and sections as the evolutionists try 
to do, certain great overwhelming facts stand plainly out. 
One of these is the fact of harmony. 

As we observe the world around us, there is harmony 

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IN THE NEGATIVE 


everywhere. Now there can never be harmony without 
design. The fact that the universe is a cosmos instead 
of a chaos proves this. But if there is design behind the 
universe, there must also be mind, for mind only can 
design. Dead matter cannot design. Blind force cannot 
design. The chair here cannot design to give an address; 
nor can the steam that operates the locomotive design to 
make the machine which it runs. Only mind can design; 
and when we see, therefore, design behind nature and 
the life of man, we must conclude that the Creator has, 
or is, Mind. 

This leads us to another advance step, namely, that if 
there 1s mind there must be personality, for mind is al- 
ways one of the characteristics of a person. Thus, as we 
contemplate the great Mind behind the world we know 
that God must be a living person. Not, indeed, a person 
such as you and I. We are finite and limited person- 
alities. God is the infinite, unlimited and eternal per- 
sonality. 


“We are broken lights of Thee— 
And Thou, O God, art more than we!” 


Man is a living, loving, intelligent personality, and 
since it is inconceivable that the Creator should be less 
than His creation, we know that there is a God who is a 
living, loving, intelligent being! 

But we can come home closer still in our thinking. 
We can turn to the very nature of our own minds and 
find the answer to the question of the origin of the 
world. The first dictum of the old Greek philosophy 
was “man, know thyself.’ I appeal to that. We havea 
sure foundation for rational appeal in the very nature of 
the human mind itself. Our minds are so constituted that 
we cannot separate between cause and effect. When we 
see a given effect we have at once to think of an adequate 
cause to produce this effect. We cannot avoid doing this. 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


It is written deep down in the very constitution of our 
beings so to do. 

Here, in imagination, we may see a beautiful house 
standing in symmetry and majesty among its green trees 
—with its stately columns before it; its broad verandas 
and hospitable doors, and the inspiring symmetry of per- 
fect walls and a noble roof. As we look upon such a 
scene as that we instinctively ask ourselves, “How did 
the house get there?” Now, we know that it did not 
come by chance. We might imagine all the materials of 
a house brought together in a great pile—all the braces 
and beams and boards and nails and shingles brought and 
dumped in together; and we might imagine, too, some 
unseen and mysterious force blindly stirring those ma- 
terials, tossing them about, lifting them here, yonder and 
everywhere, but we know that a house would never result 
from any such process as that. No sleeper would find its 
position. No upright would reach its place. No weather- 
boarding would be nailed on, and no roof tree would rise 
above it all. Never can we have a house until there is 
a designing architect to plan it in his wisdom and execute 
it in his power. And so as we look out upon the great 
house we call the world, carpeted with the greenest grasses 
and the never-resting sea, walled in by the sweet air, 
domed by heaven’s eternal blue and lighted by flaming sun 
and silvery moon, and the everlasting stars—as we see 
this great and beautiful home of man we must think of the 
Architect who designed it in His wisdom and who exe- 
cuted it in His love and power! And we have to violate 
the very constitution of our minds to do anything other 
than that. We cannot separate between cause and effect. 

Notice, now, we do not say there is no existence with- 
out a cause. I have here a chair, and as I see that chair 
I instinctively ask what caused the chair. But the 
moment I see behind the chair the cabinetmaker, who 
designed and executed it, I am satisfied, and my mind 

110 


IN THE NEGATIVE 


goes no further. It rests content in the creative pos- 
sibility of the cabinetmaker’s personality as the cause of 
the chair. So when we see behind the phenomena of the 
material world an existence who is all cause for the 
reason that He is infinite, then we may pause for we have 
found the First Cause. But that is precisely what our 
Bibles have been saying to us for all these years. “In 
the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” 
and God “created man in His own image.” 


111 


shel 


ay + 
Ars 





II 


REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


My friends, I will dispose of the humor first. I am 
glad that my honorable opponent was honorable enough 
at last to substitute me in Mr. Bryan’s place. So I must 
now defend my own caudal appendage. My defense is 
this: My worthy opponent is free to believe that he has 
come along the route he has been arguing for tonight if 
he wants to, but he cannot make a monkey out of me! 
My opponent may admit these simian characters to his 
family tree if he so desires, but I confess I am a little 
more particular. I have a certain pride of ancestry. We 
have had five children in our home, and I have tried to 
instil into them the truth that, while they should not 
have a false pride, nevertheless it is true that blood counts 
and that they have something to live up to. I do not 
want to have to say to them, “While it is true that, on 
your mother’s side you come from the Hillyers and Greens 
of Georgia, and on my mother’s side, from the Carters and 
Lees of Virginia, and on my father’s side, from the 
Douglasses and Stratons of Scotland, remember if you 
take a few more steps backward you will have to shake 
hands with a gorilla as your great, great, great grand- 
father !” 

Now I know that when you go too far back you some- 
times run into skeletons in the family closet. In my own 
family I have learned that more than one of those old 
fellows back there was strung up for loyalty to God and 
King. So I have to admit that some of my remote an- 

113 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


cestors hung by their necks, but I am willing to stake my 
life on the proposition that none of them ever hung by 
their tails! 

Honorable judges, ladies and gentlemen, it is time to 
come back to the subject of this debate. The subject is, 
“Resolved, That the Earth and Man Came by Evolu- 
tion’; and the definition is, that evolution is “continuous, 
progressive change, according to fixed laws, by resident 
forces.”” And I submit, in all fairness, that my opponent 
has not established the proposition that the earth and man 
came by these means. The burden of proof is upon him, 
because he is seeking to discount that theory and that 
belief, drawn from a definite Revelation, which has been 
the foundation of our society for thousands of years, and 
which will finally produce the highest and most glorious 
civilization that the world can ever know. Yes, the bur- 
den was upon him, and to overthrow the accepted belief 
of Christendom it was necessary for him to produce 
facts that were acceptable to rational minds, and I submit 
that no such facts have been given. 

No facts have been given, first of all, to bridge the 
gap between dead matter and sentient life; and then to 
bridge the gap between the alleged beginning of life in 
its low forms and its higher forms; and no argument 
and no facts have been given to bridge the tremendous 
gap between the crude instinct of the beast and the God- 
ward aspirations of man. 

Let me, therefore, just in rounding off our thought 
together, point out several things, meeting my opponent 
upon his own ground, that will answer, I think, satisfac- 
torily the points he made, even though they were not 
directly on the subject for debate. 


THE RELIABILITY OF THE BIBLE 


He referred to the fact that the Bible ought not to 
be authority, and that we have no more grounds for 
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REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


believing what the Bible says than we have for believing 
these theories of evolution. Now, I submit that we have 
adequate grounds. We have the very facts of nature and 
life themselves, and we have also the long experience of 
the human race, verifying the teaching of the Bible! 

My opponent harped much upon what he called the 
“absurd, grotesque story which we find in the first chap- 
ters of Genesis.”’ But other thinkers do not share with 
my opponent his poor opinion of the Bible. Jean Paul 
said: 


“The first leaf of the Mosaic record has more weight 
than all the folios of the men of science and philosophy 
combined.” 


This is true, and hair-splitting over differences about 
the alleged “errors” or the infallibility of the Bible does 
not at all change the fact that it is the greatest authority 
at last among the children of men. The Bible has been 
the great moral mentor and spiritual guide of the en- 
lightened nations of the earth for thousands of years. 
Its influence is simply immeasurable, and its teachings 
have proved themselves to be truth because of the pro- 
found and uplifting power which they have exerted on 
the human race. It will take something more than the 
unsupported hypotheses of the materialists and the vague 
speculations of skeptics to overthrow it. The proposition 
that only a good tree can produce good fruit is undeni- 
able, and the Bible comes to us with the credential of 
an age-long influence for righteousness and truth. 

Whatever theory it sets forth, therefore, concerning 
the origin of the earth and man, has far stronger pre- 
suppositions in its favor than the wild and constantly 
changing theories of philosophers and the mutually 
contradictory ideas of scientists, because the Bible comes 
into court with a good reputation and a good influence, 
which could spring only from truth-telling and right 
character. 

115 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


My opponent answered my remark that Wells really 
knows nothing about how the earth began because he was 
not there when God made the earth. He replied by say- 
ing that I do not know anything about it either, or about 
God making Adam and Eve, because I was not there. 
It is very true that I was not there, and Mr. Wells was 
not there, and Mr. Potter was not there, but there was 
One who was there! Jehovah—Christ was there, and 
He has told us through inspired men just what happened. 
Thank God, therefore, that He has not left us to grope 
in darkness, and to become doped with doubt, but has 
given us a Revelation that answers the eternal questions 
of human life and destiny, that satisfies the longing soul 
of man, and that is a “lamp to our feet and a light to 
our pathway”! 

So far as my opponent’s characterizations of the 
God of the Bible are concerned, and so far as his re- 
peated thrusts at the teachings of the Bible are concerned, 
I have time only to say that the God of the Bible is not 
at all the one-sided and ridiculous being which my op- 
ponent pictured Him. The God of the Bible is both im- 
manent in nature and transcendent to nature. ‘Therefore, 
He is a real God, and has all power in both the material 
and spiritual worlds. 

I would say, therefore, to all the vain and intellectually 
proud Modernists, just as Jesus said to the self-satisfied 
and skeptical Sadducees of His day: “Ye do err: not 
knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.” 

And the point which my opponent made about the 
other creation myths and stories means merely that there 
was in the beginning a true understanding about the 
creation of the world, which was given, of necessity, by 
Revelation, but as the races scattered and became more 
and more sinful and degraded, the early purity of this 
tradition was perverted and corrupted and changed into 
many ridiculous forms. The mere fact that there are sa 

116 


REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


many common elements, as, for example, the use of clay, 
etc.—in these distorted creation stories which, as my op- 
ponent admitted, come from all parts of the earth, shows 
that they all must have had a common origin,—that they 
were all true in the beginning but were then perverted, as 
before remarked, and changed with the passing years into 
their later foolish forms. 


THE BLOOD PROOF 


The Bible teaching has been vindicated at many points. 
My opponent, for example, referred to the blood. Now 
the Bible teaching about the blood is verified by the real 
facts of science, and it also completely disproves the 
theory of evolution. 

The fact that there is a great variety of blood in the 
different species of animals negatives the theory of evolu- 
tion, the foundation of which is uniformity. Science 
agrees with the Bible that the life is in the blood, and if 
all forms of animal life had come from a common an- 
cestry, then the blood of all would have to be the same. 
But we find the blood of birds and reptiles and men so 
different that if the blood of one of these be injected 
into the veins of the other, death immediately follows. 
The blood also makes the type of flesh. Science again 
agrees with the Bible that “all flesh is not the same flesh; 
but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of 
beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds” (I Cor. 
15:39). But if all animal life had sprung from a com- 
mon ancestor, then all flesh would have to be the same 
flesh. The Bible says, further, that “God hath made of 
one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face 
of the earth” (Acts 17:26). The distinction, therefore, 
which the Bible draws between man and beast at the point 
of blood and flesh is confirmed absolutely by science, and 
it completely disproves the theory of evolution. The 

117 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


Bible is vindicated, by known facts whenever they are 
really discovered, and established. 


THE FIXITY OF SPECIES 


The teaching of the Bible stands vindicated and proved 
at another point, namely the fixity of species. Right here 
in Genesis the statement is made that when God created 
life—both vegetable and animal life—he ordained that 
all forms of life should bring forth only “after their 
kind” (Gen. 1:21), and according to their “seed’’ (Gen. 
1:11). Now, so far as all human observation and ex- 
perience go, that law of God, as recorded in the Bible, 
has been obeyed during all the ages of time! Every 
form of animal life that we know anything about brings 
forth only “after its kind.’ Baboons do not produce 
peacocks, and acorns do not bring forth apple trees. No! 
each produces after its kind, just as the Bible says; and 
when all the theories and sceptical speculations are done, 
I am here tonight to say that the fixity of species answers 
the evolutionary hypothesis completely, absolutely and 
forever! The species are fixed, and the life forms are 
fixed, and whatever varieties may have developed within 
the bounds of the God-made species, have come about 
through God’s wisdom and power, and according to the 
potentialities which He implanted in vegetable and animal 
forms, and because He commanded them to increase and 
multiply and replenish the earth. 

If evolution were true, let me repeat, we ought to find 
everywhere not only the fossils of endless intermediate 
forms in transitional stages, recording the change from 
one thing into another, as I showed you, but we ought 
now to see all around us, if evolution is really a “con- 
tinuous” process, these intermediate forms of life. We 
ought to see horses developing into super-horses, and men 
sprouting wings with which to fly, and so on ad infinitum. 
Why is it that we have come up in each species, just so 

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far and stopped, if evolution is really “continuous pro- 
gressive change’? If it is that, it must go on! But it 
doesn’t go on! 

Thus we find in the deep truth of life itself—the closest 
and most obvious thing to us all—the reality of the Bible’s 
teaching that each must increase “after its kind.” There 
is a boundary which nature, or God, or whatever the 
power is, has fixed, and when that line is crossed, sterility 
is the result. Even when different branches of the same 
species are crossed, only hybrids result—and there is no 
offspring at all from crossing truly different species. The 
navel orange results from the grafting of two different 
types of orange, but the navel orange produces nothing 
from its seed. The mare and the donkey produce a mule, 
but the mule can produce nothing but a laugh! Bob 
Toombs, the Georgia statesman, said that “the mule is the 
most pathetic of all animals, in that he has neither the 
pride of ancestry nor the hope of posterity!’ And that 
fixity of species, that fact of sterility when species are 
crossed, is a definite and everywhere present proof that 
the Bible is true and evolution is false! 

I will admit that we have variation, and very wide 
variation, but because of this fixity, which is obvious and 
which science confirms, we know that it is variation only 
within the bounds of species. And this takes care of the 
question of “geographical distribution” that my opponent 
touched upon. The fact that the remains of elephants 
and other tropical animals have been found, in North 
America, and that the remains of animals now found only 
in Australia have been found in England, goes to prove 
that the present continents were formerly all united, and 
this, with known changes of climate adequately accounts 
for the varieties of animals now found in different parts 
of the earth. 

We not only see no changes in species now in progress, 
but there have been none, so far as men have been able 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


to observe, for thousands of years. We have the mum- 
mies of apes which have come down from ancient Egypt, 
but those apes, living over three thousand years ago, are 
the same as the apes of today. Not only so, but we find 
this same survival of species over even “millions of 
years,’ if we accept the long-time estimates of the evolu- 
tionists. There are forms of life, called bacteria, living 
and acting today just as they lived and acted when they 
attacked the bodies of mastodons and other animals in 
remote past ages. The scientists have found evidences 
of the work of these bacteria in the bones of those ancient 
fossils, showing that the bacteria lived and acted then 
precisely as they do now. This proves that species do 
not evolve but stand still, and if there is any change, facts 
prove that they degenerate rather than evolve to higher 
forms. 
CREATIVE DESIGN 


Another point at which the teaching of the Bible is 
vindicated by what we see around us, and by which the 
theory of evolution is completely disproved, is the fact 
of design in the wonderful adaptations of instincts to 
organs in many forms of life. I touched upon design in 
my first speech but give it now a somewhat different 
application. The thought of a halfway beaver, for ex- 
ample, surviving in the midst of many foes, and doing 
the wonderful things that a beaver has to do to live at all, 
is an absurd thought! The individual could not have 
survived for a day, and thus the species must have 
perished ! 

The idea of transitional amendments is, therefore, con- 
tradictory to the fundamental principles of evolution. 
Darwin teaches that any evolution in nature, any new 
bodily organ or feature, must be profitable to the indi- 
viduals of a species in order for the species to survive 
(See page 77, “Origin of Species”). But a half-formed 

120. 


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wing or a budding leg or an incomplete eye would not 
be useful to the individual but an impediment. Only 
completed organs are useful to the individual. One 
principle of evolution is that nature abhors useless things 
and throws them off. Therefore, this other principle 
cannot be true that a useless half organ would be pre- 
served by nature through long stretches of time, until it 
developed into a perfect organ through successive indi- 
viduals! 

Take again the water spider. Here is a creature so 
wonderful, and with habits of life so extraordinary, that 
it cannot possibly be conceived as coming from any 
process of evolution. 

The water spider is a true spider, yet it lives much of 
the time and builds its nest under water, though it is an 
air-breathing animal like the other spiders. It first goes 
under the water and spins from its own body a water- 
proof silken envelope or bulb, which it attaches firmly to 
a rock or other object at the bottom of the water. The 
mouth of this bulb is downward, and of course in the 
beginning is filled with water, though it is waterproof on 
the outside. After making this home for itself, the water 
spider then goes to the surface and, because of the pecu- 
liar formation of the hairs on its legs, it can catch a 
bubble of air, which it carries down into the water and 
turns loose under its newly constructed home. The 
bubble of air rises until it strikes the top of the inside 
of the bulb, and there it stays, driving out a proportionate 
quantity of water. The spider then goes back and gets 
another bubble of air, and continues this operation until 
it has filled its house with air and driven out all the 
water. Then it lays its eggs, attaching them to the inside 
top wall of its house, and there rears its young in safety. 

Now the spider could not possibly live and do these 
things unless it had a perfect instinct, and all of its organs 
were perfected for carrying out its instinct. The thought 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


of a half water spider in the process of evolution is an 
absurdity! It would drown if it did not have all of the 
organs for spinning its waterproof house, on the one side, 
and all of the instincts through which it uses its organs 
and protects its young, on the other. 

In Job God claims that He gives “the goodly wings 
unto the peacock,” provides food for the ravens, causes 
the hawk to fly by His wisdom, to “stretch her wings 
toward the south,” and the eagle to mount up at His 
command and “make her nest on high” (Job 39). Thus 
the Bible teaches that God’s designing wisdom and watch- 
ful care is over all things, and we see His handiwork in 
the wonders of nature on every hand. 


EVOLUTION IMMORAL 


There is another point at which the Bible is proved 
true and evolution false, and that is in the field of moral 
influence. Beyond any question, the evolutionary phi- 
losophy is a brutalizing and essentially immoral thing and 
it is utterly contrary to Bible teaching. Now I submit 
it as self-evident that nothing can be mentally true that 
is morally false. Truth is a unity, and nothing can 
be intellectually right that is ethically wrong. Now the 
theory of evolution is ethically wrong and it cannot, 
therefore, be intellectually right. 

My opponent referred to God and the recent World 
War. He said that the war disproved the fact of a living 
transcendent God such as the Bible pictures. But his 
reference was not only untrue as to God, it was also 
most unfortunate for himself and the cause he is cham- 
pioning tonight. 

A Living God was in the war. He saw to it that it 
was rightly won against overwhelming odds. He finally 
brought victory out of defeat for human liberty and 
eternal righteousness. Yes, through Christian America 
God triumphed in the war. 

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REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


But I ask you to look at the really significant fact about 
the war, namely, the moral wreck and ruin which came 
to Germany, through the evolutionary philosophy, which 
really produced the war. The old Germany of Goethe 
and Schiller and Luther—the Germany of the Christmas 
tree, of neighborly kindness, of music, and art, and 
true science—was miseducated and debauched by the im- 
portation, through the Prussians, of the godless and 
destructive evolutionary philosophy. The military lead- 
ers of Prussia, encouraged by the Junkers, and the vain 
and ambitious Kaiser and his equally vain and ambitious 
forefathers, accepted and acted upon the teaching of 
Darwin as truth. 

In one of the summaries of his “Origin of Species” 
Darwin speaks of evolution as the “one general law lead- 
ing to the advancement of all organic beings—namely: 
multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die” 
(p. 297). 

Here is “the survival of the fittest” with a vengeance! 
And this teaching bore its logical and inevitable fruit in 
Germany. 

The half-crazed Nietzsche, who ended his days in the 
insane asylum, seized upon this teaching of Darwin with 
avidity, and from it he evolved his idea of the “super- 
man”; and he taught the Germans that they were the 
supermen. He referred to the German proudly as the 
“blond beast.” He glorified war and declared that it 
is a necessity. He utterly repudiated and rejected the 
Christian religion. He taught that Christ was a weak- 
ling, and that His religion was an enemy to the human 
race; that such things as love and sympathy and mercy 
are vices and not virtues, and that the strong ought to 
trample on and destroy the weak in order that “the fittest”’ 
may survive! 

Treitschke and Von Bernhardi took this teaching of 
Darwin and Nietzsche as the basis of their philosophy, 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


and they deliberately glorified war as Nietzsche had done. 
Their books were printed in cheap popular editions and 
spread by the Junkers and military masters of Germany 
throughout the empire, and thus the German nation was 
miseducated and misled. 

Yes Germany took Darwinism literally. Darwin had 
taught the “survival of the fittest” in the brute struggle 
for supremacy, and Germany said: “That is true, and 
we propose to demonstrate that we are the fittest!’ So 
she formulated her philosophy that “might makes right,” 
which is simply a practical expression of Darwin’s “sur- 
vival of the fittest,” and thus she sprung at the throat of 
an unsuspecting world! 

Now, if Darwin taught truth, Germany was right, in 
1914, and we cannot complain at the tearing up of 
treaties like “‘scraps of paper,” at the wholesale raping of 
women, at the bombing of hospital ships, or the sending 
of the Lusitania to the bottom of the sea! 

Nor is that all that is to be said of the moral ruin 
wrought by Darwinism and evolution in general. The 
wave of animalism, with its corrupting influence upon 
morals, has come through this philosophy of animalism, 
which is prostituting and destroying the human race. If 
we are merely highly developed beasts, then why should 
we not live like beasts? Monkey men make monkey 
morals! 

The glorification of the flesh over the spirit, of animal- 
ism over idealism, through the brute philosophy of evo- 
lution, is the real key to the moral decay of the times! 

That talented Englishman who writes under the nom 
de plume of the “Gentleman with a Duster” did not 
overstate the case when, in his book on “Painted Win- 
dows,” he denounced Darwinism as the fountain-head of 
these modern ills. It is true, my friends, that all of these 
dangerous and disgusting wrongs of today can be traced 
back, so far as their rapid increase is concerned, to the 

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time when the dark and sinister shadow of Darwinism 
fell across the fair fields of human life! 

The truth of the creation as revealed in the Bible is 
an ennobling and inspiring truth. It links man to heaven 
and to God. The falsehood of evolution is a degrading 
and demoralizing one because it drags man down to 
beasthood and the mud. 


THE TWO FUNDAMENTAL FALLACIES 


In closing, I point out the two great fundamental 
fallacies of the evolutionary philosophy. The first is that 
nothing is fixed or final, but that all things are in a state 
of constant “flux and change.” It is this false notion 
that is behind the mental weakness and the moral laxity 
of this philosophy. Because of this false idea, it is 
argued that there are no fixed and unchanging moral 
standards, and so the Ten Commandments are jauntily 
thrown into the discard, and the youth of today are left 
to do as they please! The last sentence which is thrown 
on the screen in the film, “Evolution,” which is being 
widely exhibited, is this: “The only unchanging thing 
is change.” 

It is as false as hell, and as ruinous as death! There 
are many things that are absolutely unchangeable. The 
proposition that twice two equals four is eternally true. 
The proposition that a straight line is the shortest dis- 
tance between two points cannot “evolve” nor change nor 
alter forever. The true principles of physics and chem- 
istry are unchangeable and eternal. The unchangeable- 
ness of “natural law’ which the evolutionists invoke in 
their behalf negatives this other fundamental plea which 
they make of “continuous progressive change.” The 
great ethical principles of justice, righteousness and truth 
are all unchanging. Likewise, the Word of God is 
“established forever in heaven.” It cannot change, and 

125 


EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


the Christ that it pictures is “the same yesterday, today 
and forever!’ 

The philosophy which teaches that all things are 
changing is not a true philosophy, and there are great 
enduring realities upon which we can build our lives, 
establish our homes, and develop a sane and noble society. 

The other fundamental falsehood of evolution is that 
strife and struggle are the way of life. It is not true 
that the brute struggle for existence and the “survival of 
the fittest” are the profoundest facts of nature and life. 
There is another higher and greater truth, a more uni- 
versal principle than the principle of conflict, competition 
and war, and that is the fact of co-operation, helpfulness, 
and sacrifice in service. Despite our superficial prattle 
about the “survival of the fittest,’ the fact stands that 
the forces which make for union and harmony have 
always been greater than the forces which make for dis- 
union and strife. The fundamental fact that the universe 
is a cosmos instead of a chaos proves that. The cohesive 
forces are stronger than the disruptive forces; the cen- 
tripetal forces are greater than the centrifugal forces; 
the sunshine is superior to the storm, and the light has 
the power to drive darkness away. So the struggle for 
life is not the greatest factor, nor is it the factor that 
should be most stressed. The struggle for the life of 
others is of far greater prominence in nature, when we 
but see the truth deeply enough. The little bird will 
battle more fiercely for its young than for its own food 
or life, and everywhere self-sacrifice for others is seen. 
Nature is not prevailingly, therefore, “red in tooth and 
claw.” Nutrition is accompanied by reproduction, in 
order that life may continue, and the sacrifices of father- 
hood and motherhood throughout all of nature are, in 
themselves, eloquent of the truth that unselfishness and 
concern for others is infinitely greater, as well as more 
beautiful and more important, than the selfish struggle 

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for the “survival of the fittest.” All of which is but 
proof of the cheering prophecy that “the meek shall 
inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the 
abundance of peace.”’ 

There is a great tenderness at the heart of the world, 
and this expresses itself in the highest truth known to 
man, namely, that “God is love.” The supreme expres- 
sion of that love in human history was the cross that 
stood on the place called Golgotha; and the One who was 
nailed to the cross has taught us that God is not a heart- 
less force, but a heavenly Father who, because of His 
infinite love, gave His own son to die that we might be 
saved from sin and enter into everlasting life. It is the 
philosophy of the cross, with its great teaching of 
self-sacrifice in service, which is needed today, and not 
the philosophy of the brute struggle for survival, the 
philosophy of the shambles, which is the apotheosis of 
self and the mother of all wars, immoralities, hatreds and 
wrongs. 

It is not true that we came up from the slime and the 
beasts through the jungle, and that we pass out into a 
night of oblivion unlighted by a single star. It is true 
that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth’ and that He made “man in His own image.” It 
is true that we came from God through the Garden, and 
that we are destined by obedience to Him to an eternity 
of joy in a land that is “fairer than day,” where we will 
meet again our loved ones who went before, and upon 
whose blissful shore there falls no shadow and rests no 
stain ! 

The great need of the times is not self-assertiveness 
and arrogant pride, but humility, gentleness and self- 
sacrifice in service. 

With the simple faith of a little child, therefore, we 
can say with Cecil Frances Alexander, in his exquisite 

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EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION 


poem, to which I have ventured to add a closing verse 
of my own: 


“All things bright and beautiful, 
All creatures great and small, 
All things wise and wonderful, 
The Lord God made them all. 
Each little flower that opens, 
Each little bird that sings, 
He made .their glowing colors, 
He made their tiny wings. 


“The purple-headed mountain, 
The rivers running by, 
The sunset and the morning, 

That brightens up the sky; 
The cold wind in the winter, 
The pleasant summer sun, 
The ripe fruits in the garden, 
He made them every one. 


“The tall trees in the greenwood, 
The meadows where we play, 
The rushes by the water, 
We gather every day. 
He gave us eyes to see them, 
And lips that we might tell, 
How great is God Almighty, 
Who has made all things well.” 


The Bible as our Helper, 
And Jesus as our friend, 
To die on dark Golgotha 
To make us good again. 
God gave us hearts to love Him, 
And tongues His praise to tell— 
How good is God Almighty, 
Who maketh all things well! 


128 


THREE: THE VIRGIN BIRTH—FACT 
OR FICTION? 


I 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


QUESTION: 

RESOLVED, THAT THE MIRACULOUS VIRGIN BIRTH OF 
Jesus Curist is A Fact AND THAT IT IS AN ESSENTIAL 
CHRISTIAN DOcTRINE. 

The heart of our nation has been recently touched by 
the death of two Presidents of the Republic. It is very 
significant, as [ shall show a little later, that both Warren 
G. Harding and Woodrow Wilson before they died de- 
clared themselves as being in sympathy with the Funda- 
mentalists and as opposed to the Modernists in the pres- 
ent religious situation. This proves not only that the 
old-fashioned views of religion appeal to both the schol- 
arly and the practical mind, but also that the religious 
issues of today are being recognized more and more as 
of vital importance. 

I wish to present my side of the debate tonight under 
three very simple but, I trust, comprehensive heads. I 
ask you to consider first—the possibility of the virgin 
birth; secondly, the probability of it; and thirdly the 
positive proof of it. This will naturally lead us then to 
a brief consideration of its essential character. 


I. THE POSSIBILITY OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


In asking you to consider the possibility of such an 
event as the virgin birth of Christ, I shall try to show that 
it was possible, first in the light of science, and secondly, 
in the light of faith. 

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THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


1. To begin with, then, notice that there is no known 
natural law and no real fact of science, that would make 
such an event impossible. The author of a recent little 
book on ‘Science An Aid to Faith” concludes a scholarly 
and scientific discussion by saying: 

“Modern science affirms nothing that discredits the doctrine 
of the Virgin Birth. To assert that there is anything in 
biology or in any other modern science that discredits the 
Virgin birth, considered as a physiological event, is to display 
lack of knowledge of the latest advances of science.” 

One of our New York radical preachers said in a ser- 
mon some time since that “The virgin birth is not to be 
accepted as an historic fact,” because it involves “a 
biological miracle that our modern minds cannot use.” 
But, we may ask, “Whose modern minds?” This state- 
ment is merely an illustration of the colossal vanity and 
self-esteem of the religious radicals. The wise men of 
old are not the only wise men who have come to bow 
before Him who was born of a Virgin and who was 
first laid in a manger. Such men as Orr, Dorner, Mor- 
tensen, Osterzee, Godet, Bishop Lightfoot, Bishop West- 
cott, Tholuck, Lange, Luthardt, Delitzsch, Rothe, Dr. 
Sanday, of Oxford, Dr. Sweet, of Cambridge, Principal 
Fairbairn, of Warfield, Sir William Ramsey, of Aber- 
deen; Bishop Gore, Canon Ottley, Dr. Robert Dick Wil- 
son, of Princeton University; Dr. E. Y. Mullins, 
President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 
and also President of the Baptist World Alliance, and 
many others, have believed and taught the virgin birth. 
Are not these minds “modern’’? Indeed, the whole great 
body of the Christian Church from the beginning, includ- 
ing multitudes of clear thinkers, distinguished scholars 
and great scientists have had room for this faith in their 
minds. 

In addition to such writers, the famous scientist Ro- 
manes declared, even while he was an agnostic and before 

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he came back to the Christian faith, that there was no 
known physiological law which would prevent belief in 
the virgin birth. 

On the other hand, there are some known facts of 
nature that shed some light on the possibility of such an 
event. For one thing, parthenogenesis, that is generation 
by a virgin, is a well known fact occurring occasionally 
among bees and other such creatures. 

Viewed scientifically, there are two sides to the concep- 
tion of new life: one is the psychological, or thought side, 
and the other is the biological or material side. As to the 
psychological side, it is well known that thought pro- 
foundly affects the conception and development of new 
life. The records of prenatal influences, such as fright, 
joy, etc., and the reaction of dreams on sex functions, 
have long since proved this. Boris Sidis of Harvard, 
and other investigators, have proved not only that thought 
may be registered electrically, but that thought even causes 
chemical changes in a body. Intangible though thought 
is, it is now a well known fact that anger turns loose 
certain poisons in the human system. Fright has been 
known to produce such radical chemical changes that 
death followed, and joyful thoughts also profoundly affect 
the body. 

Then, as to the physiological or biological side, it has 
been demonstrated scientifically in recent times that gen- 
eration of new life among certain creatures can be brought 
about without the usual sexual union. Scientists have 
demonstrated by their experiments that the eggs of sea 
urchins, star fish, and other such living things, can be 
and have been fertilized and made to reproduce their kind 
without the operation of sex forces. Dr. Jacques Loeb, 
of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, one 
of the foremost authorities in the field of biology, 
in his book on “The Dynamics of Living Matter’ 
(page 165), says: “Eggs which naturally develop only 

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THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


when a spermatozoid enters, can be caused to develop 
artificially by certain physical and chemical means.” The 
scientists have demonstrated that certain forms of elec- 
trical energy or light rays are capable of thus stimulat- 
ing eggs into activity and development, and that these 
light rays can penetrate living matter and may be def- 
nitely directed to produce specific effects in a living body, 
as, for example, the treatment of cancer by radium or 
the fertilization of an egg within the body. Further, 
the amazing announcement was made by Dr. Charles 
Russ of England a little while ago that, as demonstrated 
by experiments, the human eye in vision emits a ray that, 
varying in strength according to health, etc., can actually 
move ponderable matter. 

Because, then, of these scientific truths about the power 
of thought and the power of light, we may draw a parallel 
that may help our thinking in connection with the Virgin 
Birth of Christ. 

It is this: Since man’s limited understanding and finite 
power can send rays of light through matter which will 
fertilize eggs, and since thought has tangible transform- 
ing effects upon matter, which bring about actual elec- 
trical and chemical changes, and are particularly in- 
fluential in conception, then what shall we say of the 
effects of God’s light and the application of God’s in- 
finite and unlimited power of thought? When we are 
taught that the Power of Almighty God moved upon a 
virgin’s thought and overshadowed her, that the radiant 
light of Heaven shone upon her, and that her submissive 
mind was centered in obedient willingness upon this 
blessed enterprise of bringing forth a Savior for man- 
kind, even our limited minds can catch some faint glimpse 
of the way, both psychologically and physiologically, by 
which God may have brought about the divine conception 
and virgin birth of Christ. 

Dr. Howard A. Kelly, of Baltimore, one of the most 

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famous physicians and surgeons in the world and a pro- 
fessor in the Johns Hopkins University, in expressing 
his full acceptance of the virgin birth of Christ, says: 


“The Virgin Birth upsets, as the coming of God to live 
on this earth ought to upset, all our preconceived notions. 
In this age of discovery it is folly to cry ‘impossible,’ because 
the thing proclaimed is new and outside of our own limited 
experiences. Only a few years ago radium was declared 
‘utterly impossible’ by distinguished scientists, and yet the 
explanation—that the phenomena of radium are due to the 
breaking up and setting loose of enormous forces locked up 
in the ‘indivisible’ atoms (‘those foundation stones of the 
universe, unbroken and unworn,’ of Clerk Maxwell in 1875) 
—is now universally accepted, and ‘the indivisible atom’ is 
not only divided, but found to be made up of many component 
parts.” 


Another one of the most famous biologists in Amer- 
ica tells us, through the well known publicist of Mil- 
waukee, Mr. L. C. Morehouse, that from the scientific 
and historical standpoint the virgin birth is easily believ- 
able. He says emphatically: 


“To the biologist, the method of reproduction known as 
parthenogenesis is a perfectly familiar one and he finds no 
difficulty in virgin birth as such. That parthenogenesis in 
the case of a human being would be unique, and that con- 
sequently the birth of Jesus Christ from a virgin mother is 
unique, | am ready to grant; but then, Jesus Himself was 
unique, and I am inclined to argue that a unique phenomenon 
requires a correspondingly unique producing cause. As a 
scientist I may go farther and say that if the Virgin Birth 
had never been mentioned in the Gospels I should be com- 
pelled to assume it as the only reasonable explanation of 
what is affirmed and accepted regarding the character of 
Jesus. But when I find the fact of the Virgin Birth actually 
recorded by two biographers, one a business man and the 
other a competent physician who had taken pains to inform 
himself accurately concerning every detail from the very 
first; when I find the mind of the church accepting the record 
at a very early date and affirming it as her continuous belief 
and as the only reasonable explanation of the fact of the 
incarnation of the Son of God in the person of Jesus of 

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THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


Nazareth—then I am compelled to adopt, on historical 
grounds, the position which I had already reached on scientific 
grounds.” 

THE LIGHT OF FAITH 

But these considerations have to do only with method, 
and I do not seek to avoid the fact of miracle in the vir- 
gin birth. There is a deeper and more satisfying view 
of this matter than any naturalistic explanation, inter- 
esting though these scientific side lights are. In con- 
nection with the virgin birth, the angel declared that 
“Nothing shall be impossible with God,” and it was God’s 
love, backed by His miracle-working power, that gave a 
Saviour to mankind. 

I will just say, specifically and emphatically, therefore, 
that I believe the virgin birth of our Lord was a miracle 
and should be accepted as such. There are not only good 
grounds for believing that miracles are possible, but that 
in an infinite universe, ruled by a Living God, they are 
necessary and inevitable. Indeed, every birth is a miracle, 
in that it is a mystery entirely beyond our human knowl- 
edge or understanding. 


HARDING AND WILSON FUNDAMENTALISTS 


As I remarked in the beginning, it is significant that 
both Warren G. Harding and Woodrow Wilson expressed 
themselves as believing with the Fundamentalists and as 
opposed to the Modernists in the present theological 
turmoil which is rending the religious world asunder. 
Some months before he was taken sick, President Hard- 
ing openly declared that he was with the Fundamentalists 
in their defence of the old faith, And Mr. Axson, the 
brother-in-law of Woodrow Wilson, gave in the New 
York Times of February 7th, the day after Ex-President 
Wilson died, a touching and most intimate character 
sketch, in which he referred to the Fundamentalist-Mod- 
ernist discussion. He tells us that he asked Woodrow 
Wilson first what he thought would have been the attitude 

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of his preacher father on these issues, and Wilson, he said, 
replied with emphasis, that his father, if alive, would have 
been a Fundamentalist. Then Mr. Wilson added, for 
himself, that his father would have been opposed to the 
Modernists, even as he was, because, as he, Woodrow 
Wilson, put it, “they are seeking to take all of the mystery 
element out of religion.” 

This remark showed Woodrow Wilson’s profound in- 
sight into the real religious problems of today. We can- 
not reduce the world to a narrow system of bald ration- 
alism. To do so, would really destroy all of the poetry 
and vision, the romance and religion of life. We cannot 
measure an infinite universe with the yard stick of our 
finite minds. Eternity cannot be comprehended by time. 
Shakespeare was right when he said, “There are more 
things in Heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our 
philosophy.” 

Modern life is not being broadened and truly “‘iber- 
alized” but rather, it is being unspeakably narrowed by 
the rationalism and scepticism of the times. 

The noble scientist Pasteur, on the occasion of his re- 
ception at the French Academy, said: “He who only 
possesses clear ideas is assuredly a fool.” Pasteur well 
knew that if he had had from the beginning only clear 
ideas to lead him, he would never have been able to make 
the great discoveries in science which have crowned his 
name with glory. He well knew that he was led on and 
on by intuitive belief that the things after which he was 
striving were real, and thus he won by faith. We cannot 
rule out the mystery element. Life and the world are 
too filled with miracles for us so to do. 


MIRACLES ENTIRELY RATIONAL 


Now my contention is that the virgin birth was both 
a fact anda miracle. That is to say, it was a miraculous, 
fact. 
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THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


But what do I mean by that? Well I do not mean that 
it was a violation of any natural law. No law of nature 
can be violated. God is a God of Law, and the laws of 
nature are His laws. It is inconceivable that God would 
violate his own laws. <A miracle, therefore, from God’s 
side, is not a violation of any natural law, but merely 
something that God does, according to higher laws, that 
are known to Him though unknown to men; laws that 
are entirely beyond our present comprehension. 

Matthew Arnold said (Preface of “Lit and Dogma’) : 
“I do not believe in the virgin birth of Christ because it 
involves a miracle, and miracles do not happen!” 

We wonder how Mr. Arnold knew that! His dogmatic 
assertion reminds one of the African Chief who, it is 
said, had a missionary put to death because the missionary 
told him that at certain seasons of the year, in his country, 
people walked across the rivers. Living in tropical Africa 
and knowing, therefore, nothing about such a thing as 
ice, the chief thought that the missionary’s statement was 
such a monstrous lie that he ought to be put to death 
for it! 

We cannot safely argue from our own ignorance and 
our own limitations. If, a generation ago, before the 
X-ray and wireless were discovered, I had asserted that 
I could see through opaque substances and send my voice 
for thousands of miles through space without a wire, I 
would have been regarded as a madman and classified as 
indeed a blatant “sensationalist.” And yet these miracles 
of yesterday are the commonplaces of today. 


LOOKING THROUGH ONE’S OWN BODY 


A little while ago I looked through my own body and 
saw my own heart beating. My family physician sent 
me down to a specialist of this city for an examination. 
He told him to “look me over.” He not only looked me 
over: He looked me through also! He stood me up be- 

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fore an oak board in a dark room turned a peculiar electric 
light on me, and looked straight through my body. In- 
stead of taking an ‘X-ray’ photograph, he just looked 
inside with the ray. When he had satisfied his own scien- 
tific curiosity concerning my “department of the interior,” 
the specialist said to me casually, ‘Doctor, would you like 
to see yourself as others see you?r” “Well,” I replied, 
“T don’t know about that. They have said some pretty 
hard things about me here in New York, and if I really 
see myself as others see me, I do not know that I can 
stand the shock.” 

However, he held a mirror up before me, and I looked 
through my own body, and saw the beating of my own 
heart. 

Then I stepped to one side and another victim took my 
place. The specialist turned and said to me, “Doctor, 
would you like to look into this gentleman, so as to see 
this thing without a mirror?” I said, “Yes, I can stand 
it, if the gentleman is not bashful about it.” Then the 
specialist turned the light on, and I saw everything the 
man had! I not only saw Mus heart also, contracting and 
expanding as it beat, but I even saw the grain in the oak 
board behind the man’s back! 

To say that we will not believe the virgin birth “because 
it involves a miracle, and miracles do not happen,” is not 
only to assert that we know all the laws of nature, but it 
is also to assert that we know what an infinite God could, 
would or would not do! I hope, for his own credit, that 
my honorable opponent will not take such a vain and fool- 
ish position as that. 


MIRACLES POSSIBLE BECAUSE OF GOD 


The whole question of miracles is settled the moment 
we admit that in and behind the material universe there 
is a living, loving, wise and powerful God. The God 

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THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


of the deists—an absentee creator who merely started 
the world going like a vast machine, cannot be conceived 
of as working a miracle. Nor can the God of Pantheism 
—a prisoner God locked up in matter—the mere “princi- 
ple” or “law” of nature, perform a miracle. But the true 
and living God—a Being both transcendent to nature and 
immanent in nature would inevitably be a worker of 
miracles. I do every day things that to my little child 
are miracles; and so of our Heavenly Father. 

While in the South, some time ago, I heard the story of 
an argument on religion between a Christian farmer and 
a sceptical travelling salesman. ‘They were in a country 
store. The salesman was through with his orders from 
the merchant, and he entered into the conversation of the 
group of men gathered around the stove. In the course 
of his discussion with the Christian farmer, the sceptic 
got off, as usual, on to the subject of natural law and its 
invariable operation. The farmer was whittling a white 
pine stick with his jack knife, and the sceptic challenged 
him. He said: “Do you mean to assert that if you turn 
that knife loose it can go in any direction except down- 
ward, in obedience to the law of gravitation?” 

The farmer thought for a moment and then said, “Yes, 
I will assert that.” Then he turned the knife loose, but 
as he did so, he gave it a little flip upward with his finger, 
and the blade stuck in the wooden ceiling over his head. 
Now what had he done? He had not violated the law of 
gravitation. If he had done that he would have wrecked 
the universe! No! he had simply brought into play an- 
other law, namely the law of human will in living per- 
sonality, and that took precedence, in that particular case, 
over the law of gravity. In other words, the law of 
muscular action, backed by the will of a living person, was 
stronger, so far as that knife was concerned, than the 
downward pull of gravitation. 

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FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


PERSONALITY SUPERIOR TO NATURAL LAW 


An object lesson is sometimes useful. I hold here in 
my hand a watch. Now the natural law of this watch is 
for the hands to move around from right to left. When 
left to itself, the watch always acts invariably in just that 
way. Any yet, I can press down this little stem and move 
the hands of the watch from left to right or from right 
to left, or stop or start them as I wish and will. In other 
words, I can make the watch do many things, through 
the intervention of my personality, which it does not and 
cannot do merely through its own natural laws. And in 
doing these unusual, or miraculous things, I have not 
violated the law of the watch, nor have I injured it in 
any way. 

Oh, yes, my friends, there are more things in heaven 
and earth than are dreamed of in our poor human 
philosophy! And the final fact in the universe is not 
dead matter and blind force, but living, loving Person- 
ality. Yes, the final fact is God! And he can both will 
and do according to His own good pleasure! 

If, therefore, we believe that Almighty God created the 
universe as a whole, then we should certainly have no 
difficulty in believing that He could create also in part. 
If God made the first man—Adam—without a human 
mother, then could not the same God bring into being the 
second Adam—Christ—without a human father? There 
is no more difficulty in accepting the recorded birth of 
Jesus Christ without an earthly father, than in accepting 
the recorded creation of Adam without an earthly mother. 
To disbelieve in either means, therefore, simply a rejec- 
tion of the Bible narrative, and a denial of the living God 
therein revealed, and that only because of subjective 
doubts and unbelief! 

The possibility of such an event as the virgin birth, 
when rightly seen, both on grounds of faith and reason 

139 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


alike, is very easy of acceptance by any fair and un- 
prejudiced mind! The trouble today is that many minds 
are closed by doubt to this and other great spiritual 
truths. They no longer have clear faith in the living 
God. Instead of the eternal, “I Am,” it is with them, the 
great, “What Is It?” 

The Angel of the Annunciation truly said, ““With God 
nothing shall be impossible.”” We will remember, there- 
fore, in all our discussions that behind the virgin birth 
of our Lord stands a living God, with His wise and loving 
purpose of human redemption from sin and the dominion 
of Satan! 


II. THE PROBABILITY OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


In coming, then, to a consideration of the probability 
of the Virgin birth, we naturally ask, first, was there any 
need or occasion for such an event, which would lead us 
to expect it ? 

I answer directly, yes—the need of humanity for a 
Savior or Redeemer. Regardless of any one’s views 
about the Garden of Eden story, the fact stares all men 
in the face that something is radically wrong with the 
human race. The need for outside help, for a Savior, 
has been apparent from the very dawn of history. So 
among all peoples there has been the hope and dream of a 
Messiah or Redeemer. 

Now the revealed religion of Judaism and Christianity 
have the only consistent, comprehensive and truly his- 
torical account of the coming of such a Redeemer, or 
Saviour, and it is in connection with this precise matter 
that the narrative of the virgin birth occurs. 


THE ANCIENT PROPHECIES 


The second ground of probability for anticipating a 
divine, virgin-born Savior is ancient prophecy. It is a 
most striking and significant fact that the virgin birth was 

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prophesied hundreds of years before it came to pass. In- 
deed, the very first prophecy recorded in the Bible seems 
to deal with it. In the midst of the sin-wrecked Eden, 
God’s voice was heard, saying that the “seed” of the 
woman was to bruise the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15). 
God promised a Redeemer and Savior from sin who 
was to bruise Satan’s head, and He said that this Savior 
was to be the “seed” of the woman. The whole of the 
Bible is but the picture of the enlargement and promised 
final fulfillment of this first prophecy. 

It is noteworthy that the prophecy states that it was to 
be the “seed of the Woman.” Only by divine inspiration 
could such a prophecy as that have been recorded. The 
thought of the pre-eminence of woman was utterly repug- 
nant to the ancient Jewish mind. The Jew greatly 
emphasized the importance of the male. The ambition 
of every ancient Israelite was to be the father of a son. 
They cared but little for girl children, so great was their 
emphasis upon the place and importance of the male. 
Whatever Jew wrote Genesis, therefore, unless he had 
been inspired and directed of God so to write, would 
never have written that the coming Messiah or Savior 
was to be the “seed” of the woman. An uninspired Jew 
would have written that it would be the “seed” of the 
man who would bruise the serpent’s head and redeem the 
race, 


THE NEW SPIRITUAL HEAD 


But God knew that the human race needed a new 
spiritual head to take the place of the carnal Adam. God 
knew that if men were to be saved, if they were to be- 
come righteous and pure, they must have a new spiritual 
heredity to take the place of the old sinful heredity from 
Adam. So God planned and prophesied a sinless spiritual 
Savior, and such a Savior could only come through 


the holy power of God as His Begetter and Father. 
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THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


Therefore, Isaiah, in that rapt and marvelous prophecy, 
which doubtless went beyond his own human understand- 
ing at the time it was uttered, and which had a much 
wider application than the local conditions under King 
Ahaz as is evidenced by the fact that it is addressed to 
the entire house of David, said: 


“The Lord Himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin 
shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Im- 
manuel” (Isaiah 7:14). 


The prophecy of this son to be born of a virgin is not 
confined to the one verse here in the seventh chapter of 
Isaiah. This prophecy continues over several chapters, 
and here in the ninth chapter we see that this Virgin-born 
son was to go, in the meaning and power of his life, far 
beyond the days of Ahaz. Here the prophet was mani- 
festly moved and inspired by a Divine afflatus, that flashed 
before his enraptured vision a coming glory, which was 
to appear long after the day in which he lived. His vision 
was so real that it was as though it had already come to 
pass. So he exclaimed, with well-nigh inexpressible joy: 

“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great 
light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, 
upon them hath the light shined. For unto us a child is 
born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be 
upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, 
Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The 
Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and 
peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David, and 
upon His kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with 
judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. 


The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this” (Isaiah 
9:2 and 6-7). 


Such a wonderful prophecy as this about a being so 
marvelous, could not possibly have had in view a mere 
man, born in the ordinary way. 

Nor can unbelief dispose of this matter by saying that 
the Hebrew word translated here “virgin” may mean 

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something else. Those who try to dispose of the virgin 
birth say that the Hebrew word almah means merely a 
young woman of marriageable age, not necessarily a 
virgin. They argue that another word, bethulah, is used 
for a real virgin. It is a remarkable fact, however, that 
this word bethulah, which critics claim is used only of a 
real virgin, is actually used in Joel 1:8 of a bride weeping 
for her husband, while the word almah, which it is 
claimed may not mean an actual virgin, is used in this 
and six other places (Genesis 24:43, Exodus 2-8; Psalm 
68 :26; proverbs 13:19, Song of Solomon 1:3; 6-8) and 
never in any other sense than an unmarried maiden. 

Luther said: 

“If a Jew or Christian can prove to me that in any other 
passage of scripture ‘almah’ means a ‘married woman,’ | will 
give him one hundred florins, although God alone knows 
where I may find them.” 

Dr. Willis Beecher says that there is no trace of the 
use of this word to denote any other than a virgin. 

The seventy scholars who produced the septuagint ver- 
sion of the Old Testament translated the word almah 
into the Greek parthenos which means “virgin” and noth- 
ing else. 

In addition to these prophecies in Isaiah, there is a 
similar prediction in Jeremiah: “The Lord hath created 
a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a 
man.’—(Jer. 31:32.) That this passage refers to the 
virgin birth is shown by the preceding context which says: 
“Turn again, O virgin of Israel, to these thy cities.” 


REVELATION TO MATTHEW 


Now Matthew takes these ancient prophecies and says 
that they were fulfilled in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. 
After telling of the birth of Christ, Matthew says: 

“Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which 


was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold a 
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THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and 
they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted 
is God with us” (Matthew I :22-23). 

In the light of well known history, it is apparent that 
this was not written by Matthew because he wanted to 
fix up something that would fit in with what Isaiah had 
prophesied. These things were not in the Jewish mind 
in Matthew’s day. The voice of prophecy had been silent 
in Israel for over four hundred years, and the race had 
sunk into the spiritual dearth and death of Phariseeism. 
Common sense, therefore, as well as devout scholarship 
tell us truly that Matthew must have been inspired in 
order to see that the virgin birth of Christ did ful- 
fill the ancient prophecies, and to record for us the 
spiritual significance of that event. Every step in the 
story and every advance in the record are assuredly and 
manifestly under the guidance of supernatural, spiritual 
and heavenly powers. 

Because, then, of these marvelous prophecies, which 
were of old time, we are overwhelmed with the prob- 
ability that the Savior would be born of a virgin. 


FAKE FULFILMENTS 


There is also another aspect of this part of the ques- 
tion to which I wish to draw attention. It is that the 
heathen and pagan myths about the alleged cohabitation 
of “Gods” with earthly women, to produce Kings and 
heroes, instead of militating against the credibility of the 
virgin birth of our Lord as alleged by some, really 
strengthen it, when rightly understood. It is said that 
the disciples of Jesus were so impressed by the greatness 
of our Lord that, after He went away from them, they 
tended to think of Him more and more as divine, until 
they finally followed the old pagan custom of attributing 
supernatural origin to one who was very great. So, it is 

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argued, they added the story of the virgin birth of Christ 
to the gospel narratives. 

This is a subtle and treacherous argument, but its scep- 
tical sophistry deceives only the simple minded and the 
uninformed. When we remember these ancient proph- 
ecies that the Savior was to be virgin born, and when 
we remember that there is also in the world a great spirit 
of evil—Satan—who ever seeks to defeat God, we would 
expect that he would endeavor to nullify the value of the 
virgin birth by caricaturing it. Just such distortions and 
perversions of truth as are found in those revolting old 
myths are to be expected. Only a thing of value is coun- 
terfeited; and the great adversary of souls, knowing that 
the Savior would be virgin born, seems to have en- 
deavored to discount the event in advance by putting 
these absurd and licentious lies into the minds of men, 
and giving them currency in connection with human 
vanity, ambition, and lust. 


SATAN S SUBTERFUGES 


Such students of comparative religion as Prof. Max 
Mueller, Johann Warneck, Le Page Renouf, Emmanuel 
Rouge, Franz Lenormant, and others, have proved that 
ancient religions were pure in their beginnings, and that 
among the very ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Indians, Zoro- 
astrians, and Chinese, and even among the Sumerians and 
Africans there was monotheism and the worship of one 
‘supreme spiritual God. Then, these scholars tell us, all 
these religions degenerated into polytheism, idolatry, etc. 

Thus, W. St. Clair Tisdale closes his study of “Chris- 
tianity and Other Faiths,’ with this statement: 


“Tt follows that Monotheism historically preceded Poly- 
theism, and that the latter is a corruption of the former. It 
is impossible to explain the facts away. Taken together 
they show that, as the Bible asserts, man at the very beginning 
of history knew the one true God. This implies a Revela- 

145 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


tion of some sort, and traces of that revelation are still 
found in many ancient faiths.” 


The grotesque heathen creation myths, to which my 
opponent referred in the last debate, and the foolish 
legends about the flood which other races than the 
Hebrews have produced, only prove that the early knowl- 
edge about the creation, the flood, etc., which was common 
to all in the beginning through divine Revelation, became 
polluted and distorted as time passed, by the sinful and 
degenerate human mind. 

Adam and his descendants would know and take over 
the world, the knowledge that the coming Redeemer was 
to be virgin born, (Gen. 3:15). That this is exactly 
what happened is evidenced by the following: 

“In the Egyptian mythology, Pthah was represented with 
a distorted foot, implying lameness, with allusion to the 
bruised heel of the seed of the woman. The Hindoo myth- 
ology represents, by sculptured figures in their old pagodas, 
Creeshna—an avatar or incarnation of their mediatorial 
deity, Veeshnu—in one instance trampling on the crushed 
head of the serpent, and in another, the latter entwining the 
deity in its folds, and biting his heel. In the Scandinavian 
mythology, Thor, the first-born of the Supreme Deity, and 
holding an intermediate place between God and man, is said 
to have engaged in a mortal struggle with a gigantic serpent, 
to have bruised his head and finally slain him. And in the 
classic mythology Hercules appears in conflict with the 
dragon which assailed the daughters of Atlas after they had 
plucked the golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides; 
he wields a formidable club, and his right foot rests on the 
head of the writhing monster.’ (Com. on Gen.—Jamieson. ) 


So Satan seems to have taken the great prophecy, that 
the seed of the woman was to bruise the head of the 
serpent—which prophecy was well known to the entire 
race in the beginning, and he perverted and distorted it 
in the minds of men by spreading among them these 
coarse, crude myths. He manifestly thus sought to fore- 
stall and discount the virgin birth of the world’s Savior. 

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But Satan has bungled and blundered, as he always 
does, in spreading these absurd and silly old myths, even 
though some rationalists and modernists, because of their 
superficial thinking, have been caught by them. They not 
only tend to prove, as just said, that the devil counter- 
feited true prophecy, but, as Bishop Gore and others have 
pointed out, they have another value. Dr. James Orr, 
recognized by liberals and conservatives alike as one of 
the greatest scholars of this generation, in his famous 
book on “The Virgin Birth,” well said of these old myths: 


“Vile as many of them are, they have a value as showing 
the natural workings of men’s minds—the universality of 
the instinct which connects superhuman greatness with a 
divine origin, and may be construed in our favor as leading 
us to expect that, if there is a real incarnation, it will be 
accompanied by a miraculous origin” (“The Virgin Birth 
of Christ,” page 166). 


These old myths are so completely foreign to the Jewish 
mind, so utterly lacking in any historical facts as to time, 
place, persons, etc., in connection with their alleged occur- 
rence, that they could not possibly have influenced the 
thinking of the disciples about the virgin birth. Indeed, 
they are so manifestly grotesque and ridiculous as to 
render it utterly impossible to connect them with holy 
things. In the case of Buddha, for example, the story 
is that while his mother (not a virgin, note you) slept, 
she dreamed that a white, six-tusked elephant entered 
her side, and then, ten months later, a child was born, 
who was Buddha! Can any fair and well-balanced mind 
find even an analogy between such an extravaganza and 
the delicate, restrained, careful narratives of our Gospels? 

So far from its being true that pagan birth myths have 
any source relation to the Gospel stories, it is abundantly 
evident that the narratives of the Nativity are Jewish- 
Christian through and through. Dr. Bacon of Yale, says: 


“The basal fact for every student of these chapters of 
147 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


Matthew and Luke is that they are Hebrew to the core. This 
is simply fatal to all comparison with heathen mythology.” 


Dr. Harnack, while he counts the Virgin Birth legend- 
ary, nevertheless knocks its pagan derivation in the head. 
He says: 


“Nothing that is mythological in the sense of Greek and 
Oriental myth is to be found in these accounts; all here is in 
the spirit of the Old Testament, and most of it reads like 
a passage from the historical books of that ancient volume’’.+ 


Every consideration of the rational mind of man and 
every longing of his aspiring soul lead us, therefore, to 
the probability of the manifestation of God in human 
flesh, and this naturally would come to pass through a 
real incarnation by the virgin birth. 


1 These vulgar and revolting myths tell how some God, like Zeus, 
for example, would transform himself into a serpent and thus have 
improper relations with a maiden or a wife, and thus a super-man 
or God was conceived. Dr. James Orr, completely exploded the 
application of these pagan and heathen myths to the virgin birth of 
our Lord. He answers every one of these far-fetched arguments 
with overwhelming force. In speaking of the old Greek and Roman 
Fables he says: 

“Tt is the fact that not one of these tales has to do with 
a virgin birth in the sense in which alone we are here concerned 
with it, The Gods of whom these impure scandals are narrated 
are conceived of as being like in form, parts and passions, to 
mortal men. If they beget children, it is after a carnal manner. 
A God, inflamed by lust—Zeus is a chiel sinner—surprises a 
maiden, and has a child by her, but it is by natural generation. 
There is nothing here analogous to the virgin birth of the 
gospels. The stories themselves are incredibly vile. The better- 
minded in Greece and Rome were ashamed of them. Plato 
would have them banished from his Republic. They were, as 
Tertullian tells us, the subjects of public ridicule. It is a strange 
imagination that can suppose that these foul tales could be taken 
over by the church, and in the short space before the com- 
position of our Gospels, became the inspiration of the beautiful 
and chaste narratives of Matthew and Luke!” (Pages 168-69). 

“A direct borrowing of this idea (that is, the idea of virgin 
birth for Plato, Alexander and Augustus) from contemporary 
heathenism is now accordingly largely given up, even by extreme 
writers like Dr. Cheyne and Gunkel, though its rejection disposes 
of at least three-fourths of the popular analogies” (Page 171). 


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FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


III. THE POSITIVE PROOFS OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


This brings us now to a consideration of the positive 
proofs of the virgin birth. Did such an event occur in 
history? We have seen the possibility of it, and the prob- 
ability of it; and I ask you to consider now the positive 
proofs of it. For such an event not only ought to have 
occurred but actually did occur, and we have ample and 
conclusive proof of it. 

I recognize of course as we all must recognize, that 
there is an element of faith in the acceptance of any fact 
of ancient history. We were not present to see for our- 
selves, in connection with the events of ancient history; 
nor are there eyewitnesses of the events now living to 
tell us by word of mouth that they were present and can 
vouch for them. Indeed, there is more or less discussion 
and often sharp differences of opinion over many of the 
important facts, not only of ancient history but of more 
recent events. There is, for example, quite a heated con- 
troversy, which has been started by the doubting spirit of 
this age, as to whether William Shakespeare really wrote 
the plays that bear his name. Some indeed, have even 
questioned whether such a character as Shakespeare ever 
lived. 

Now, in such cases, we can only weigh the evidence 
pro and con, and then accept (largely, note you, on our 
own faith in the reliability of the witnesses and the docu- 
mentary evidence) the fact in which we come to believe. 
Yet, I rejoice to be able to say, that the facts proving the 
virgin birth are unusually clear, specific and trustworthy. 


RELIABLE DOCUMENTS AND WITNESSES 


What are the proofs, then? Here they are! First, 
historical documents that have come down to us, intact 
and reliable, tell us plainly of the virgin birth. There 
can be no real controversy over the reliability of these 

149 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


documents. Whereas we have only a few sources for 
many classical writings that have come down to us, we 
have the greatest abundance of reliable sources contain- 
ing the account of the virgin birth. Nestle reminds us, for 
instance, that all we possess of Sophocles depends on a 
single manuscript of the eighth or ninth century. Ten or 
fifteen is thought a large number for others; and few of 
these go beyond the tenth century, or are even so old. 
In contrast with this, the manuscripts of the Gospels, whole 
or parts, are reckoned by scores; if you include cursives, 
by hundreds. The accounts of the virgin birth are in all the 
original unmutilated manuscripts of the Bible which we 
possess. They are also in all the trustworthy versions of 
the Bible; and the preaching and teaching of the early 
church fathers were full of the doctrine of the virgin 
birth. There are but two versions in which the accounts 
of the virgin birth do not occur. One is known as the 
“Gospel of the Ebionites,’’ a version used by a sect in 
the early Church which denied the divinity of Christ, and 
therefore could not admit that He was born in an unusual 
manner. The other is the “Gospel of St. Luke,” used 
by a man named Marcion, a strange person, who held that 
the God of the Old Testament was different from the 
God of the New, and who taught that matter was 
essentially evil. Therefore, he could not consistently 
accept the doctrine of the Incarnation at all. 

Dr. C. C. Martindale, in his scholarly treatise on the 
Virgin Birth, points out that the Ebionite copy of Mat- 
thew began only at chapter three. He then shows how 
they arbitrarily cut off the first two chapters because of 
their unbelief about the virgin birth. He says: 


“But we know this only from Epiphanius; if then we 
accept it, we must also accept his statement that they had 
struck off Chapters 1 and 2 in the interests of their heresy. 
He also says that the Nazarene Ebionites used the full text, 
as did the early heretics Cerinthus and Carpocrates. So 

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there is no extrinsic evidence that Matthew began, originally, 
with the Mission of John.” 


The more recently discovered “Sinaitic Version” 
caused some interest at first because, though it contained 
the word “virgin,” it also seemed to make Joseph the nat- 
ural father of Jesus. But it was soon seen that it was an- 
other Ebionite version, which had been mutilated by unbe- 
lievers. And while Moffat uses the word “begat’’ in his 
translation of the New Testament, he does it only on 
the ground that “begat” in Jewish usage was used either 
for natural or legal descent. 

Dr. James Orr, from whom I quoted before, has con- 
clusively established the complete reliability of these Bible 
documents in his great book on “The Virgin Birth.” 
After surveying the entire field of MSS. and versions, 
and showing how complete is the evidence that these 
early chapters of both Matthew and Luke—the chapters 
that contain the account of the virgin birth—are genuine 
parts of the Gospel, Dr. Orr points out how arbitrary, 
unjustifiable and even at times dishonest are the efforts 
of critics and sceptics to get rid of the record of the virgin 
birth. Wellhausen, for example, simply cuts out the first 
two chapters of Matthew and Luke, in his books on those 
Gospels, without even attempting any critical justifica- 
tion for such a high-handed proceeding! ” 


?Dr. Orr says: “I have thus surveyed the field of MSS. and ver- 
sions, and have sought to show you how absolutely unbroken is the 
phalanx of evidence that these first chapters of Matthew and Luke 
are genuine parts of the Gospels in which they are found. Well, 
but, I have no doubt you are not long ere this asking in surprise: 
If the facts are thus undeniable, what do the objectors say to them? 
How are they dealt with? One characteristic example of how they 
are dealt with may perhaps suffice. Here are two recent publications 
of the great Old Testament critic Wellhausen——‘The Gospel of Mat- 
thew, Translated and Explained,’ and “The Gospel of Luke, Trans- 
lated and Explained.’ I take up his version of the Gospel of Mat- 
thew, and what do I find? It begins with Chapter 3:1. What has 
become of the first two chapters? There is not a word of note or 


151 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


The critics were not able, therefore, to get rid of the 
chapters containing the account of the virgin birth, and 
so they next resorted to the scheme of trying to mutilate 
these chapters, by dropping from them the words or 
clauses which specifically state the divine conception and 
virgin birth of Christ. Prof. Harnack, for example, 
while having to admit many of the main facts about it, 
nevertheless tries to get rid of the virgin birth itself, 
simply by deleting a part of the narrative. Just remove 
such verses as 34 and 35 in the first chapter of Luke, 
says Harnack, and the matter is settled! The verse, for 
instance, which records Mary’s question to the angel: 
“How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” and the 
angel’s answer: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, 
and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee,” 
etc. Cut these out, says Harnack, and other sceptics, and 
the virgin birth is disposed of. 

But the answer to this is that there is no ground for 
cutting these verses out, except the doubts of unbelievers, 
and their desire to alter even the Bible to make it fit in 
with their sceptical theories of naturalism, as opposed to 
super-naturalism, and evolution rather than Revelation. 
On this matter, old Augustine, in one of his vigorous and 
comment to explain. The critic thinks they should not be there, 
so, MSS. and versions notwithstanding, out they go. It is the same 
with the Gospel of Luke. I open it as before, and I find it begins 
with Chapter 3:1. Where have the first two Chapters gone to? 
Again they are simply dropped out, and again without note or 
explanation. Here, however, is a third work from the same author— 
an introduction to the First Three Gospels. Perhaps we shall find 
what we want there. But no, there is a minute and destructive 
criticism of the Gospels; much about Q, the alleged common source 
of Matthew and Luke; but not a word in explanation of why these 
chapters are dropped from what professes to be—and in the main is— 
a version of our existing Gospels. It is, no doubt, easy enough to get 
rid of the evidence for the virgin birth in this way. But is it 
scientific? Is it right? Would a similar treatment be tolerated of 
any classical work?” (Pages 47-48). 

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FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


striking metaphors, describes this plea for deletion as “the 
last gasp of a heretic in the grip of truth.” ® 

These records cannot be gotten rid of by scepticism, 
infidelity and gross dishonesty. Here they are after all 
these thousands of years, intact, trustworthy and still 
powerful in their influences over men. 


TRUSTWORTHY WITNESSES 


2. Again we have in these reliable records the testi- 
mony of trustworthy witnesses concerning these matters, 
and these witnesses tell of the fact of the virgin birth 
with circumstantial detail, and a persuasiveness that com- 
pels the believing mind and heart to accept it as truth. 


*Dr. Orr points out that even these deletions of verses if allowed 
would not really dispose of the virgin birth, because the entire con- 
text, in both Matthew and Luke, would remain, and would be in- 
explicable without these verses that directly assert the virgin birth. 
Dr. Orr goes further and says “emphatically” that this cutting out 
of verses is “on no good textual grounds.” Here again the evidence 
of MSS. and versions is decisive (Page 54, “The Virgin Birth’). 

These sceptics just arbitrarily and dishonestly try to cut the verses 
out when they do not fit in with their unbelief and infidelity. 

Prof. John McNaugher, of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, 
in his book on “The Virgin Birth,” page 13, well says: 


“These verses are retained as indubitably genuine by the most 
distinguished editors of the Greek New Testament, both in Eng- 
land and Germany. Verse 34 is omitted in one codex of the 
Latin version, but that arises apparently from a confusion of 
the text, and anyhow no canon of textual science would warrant 
the rejection of a passage on such beggarly authority. As for 
verse 35, not only is there no evidence for its omission but it is 
one of the earliest supported verses in the New Testament, 
being quoted by Justin Martyr. It is plain, therefore, that the 
criticism which adjudges these verses to be interpolated is purely 
subjective and arbitrary. If passages are to be expunged after 
that fashion, the method might be followed until little of the 
Gospel narratives would remain. Were the upholders of ortho- 
dox doctrine to indulge in such capricious text emendation, they 
would be laughed to scorn; and we have an equal right to be 
contemptuous. There are fixed rules of evidence and established 
principles of textual criticism, and it is not legitimate to ignore 
these rules and play fast and loose with these principles, even 
for the sake of dislodging an article of the Christian creed.” 


153 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


Here is no vague tradition of some human emperor with 
some gross “God” as father, when it was known to all 
people who His mother and father really were. Here is 
no empty myth, passed from mouth to mouth until it 
found a resting place upon some obscene page of human 
lust and folly. No. Here is historic detail as to time 
and name and place. Here is great reserve and delicacy 
of statement. Here is exquisite beauty of narration, and 
a nobility of sentiment so sublime that it moves the heart 
to tears. Here, in a word, is the very glory of heaven, 
flashed for a moment on the gray gloom of our sin-cursed 
earth! 


THE BEAUTIFUL STORY 


Listen again, honorable Judges and friends, to but a 
part of this sweet and compelling narrative, this old, old 
story of heavenly goodness and divine grace. Listen, first 
to the Annunciation to Joseph in Nazareth, as recorded 
in Matthew 1 :18-25: 


“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as 
his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came 
together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then 
Joseph, her husband, being a just man, and not willing to 
make her a public example, was minded to put her away 
privily. But, while he thought on these things, behold, the 
angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, 
Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary 
thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy 
Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call 
His name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their 
sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which 
was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, 
a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son and 
they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted 
is, God with us. Then Joseph being raised from sleep, did 
as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto 
him his wife; and knew her not till she had brought forth her 
first born son; and he called his name Jesus.” 

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FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


Listen next to the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary at 
Nazareth, as recorded in Luke 1 :26-38: 


“And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from 
God unto a city of Gallilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin 
espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of 
David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel 
came in unto her and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, 
the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women. And 
when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast 
in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And 
the angel said unto her, Fear not Mary; for thou hast found 
favor with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy 
womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus. 
He shall be great and shall be called the son of the Highest; 
and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his 
father David; and he shall reign over the house of Jacob 
forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end. Then 
said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know 
not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, 
The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of 
the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore, also that holy 
thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son 
of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also 
conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month 
with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing 
shall be impossible. And Mary said, behold the handmaid 
of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word; and the 
angel departed from her.” 


Listen now to the song of Elisabeth upon Mary’s visit 
to the hill country of Judea, and Mary’s reply, called the 
Magnificat, as recorded in Luke 1 :39-56: 


“And Mary arose in those days and went into the hill 
country with haste into a city of Judah; and entered into the 
house of Zacharias, and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to 
pass, when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe 
leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy 
Ghost; and she spoke out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed 
art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy 
womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my 
Lord should come to me? For lo, as soon as the voice 
of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in 
my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed; for 

155 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


there shall be a performance of these things which were 
told her from the Lord. And Mary said, my soul doth 
magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my 
Savior. For he hath regarded the low estate of his hand- 
maiden; for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall 
call me blessed. For he that 1s mighty hath done to me great 
things, and holy is his name.” 


Was ever anything, my friends, so consistent and sub- 
lime and beautiful as that? Is it not perfectly evident 
that here we are walking in the realm of reality and not 
of falsehood and deception? Does not the very manner 
of the telling prove, to both our minds and hearts, that 
Joseph related his part of these incidents and told what 
happened to him, and thus the truth was passed down 
until Matthew recorded it; and that Mary, with sweet and 
mest reserve, but with a rapture of heart that burst in 
places into poetry, told of the marvelous and miraculous 
experiences through which she passed, and thus her nar- 
rative passed on in the inner circle of believers, until 
Luke, the beloved physician, recorded it in his exquisite 
Gospel, and thus gave it to bless us and all the after ages? 

For myself, I confess to you, that this narrative, with 
its simple dignity and transparent truthfulness, not only 
enraptures my heart but delights my mind; and though [ 
have read the critical and sceptical books about it, I feel 
no hesitation or embarrassment in saying that I accept it, 
in toto, just as it is written, and believe it with every 
faculty of my intelligence and every drop of my blood! 


WERE THE WITNESSES FOOLS OR LIARS? 


And I wish to say that if we cannot accept and believe 
this fact of the virgin birth on the statement of records as 
reliable as these and on testimony as trustworthy as this, 
then there is no fact of ancient history that can be 
believed. 

It should be noted that the virgin birth of Christ is not 
founded on a vague rumor or detached myth without 

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local connections of persons, time and place. On the other 
hand, it is given in connection with other facts that are 
admitted to be historical, as, for example, the date of the 
birth, the fact that it occurred in the reign of Herod, 
and that it came in connection with the public census, 
etc. So firmly convinced has the entire Christian world 
been of these facts, that we date our letters from them. 
The “Anno Domini’—that is, the year of His birth—at 
the head of our letters is, in itself, a standing proof of 
the historical reality of that event. 

Furthermore, if words can make anything plain at all, 
the facts in this case are made plain by these witnesses. 
The first fact is that Joseph was not the father of Jesus. 
The record tells us that Joseph, instead of being the 
father, was so shocked when he found that Mary, his 
lover,—not yet his wife—was with child, that in righteous 
indignation and surprise, he was thinking of sending her 
away privately to hide her shame, until in a dream the 
angel told him the truth about the matter, namely, that 
the child was begotten by the Holy Ghost. And the 
record further explicitly states, that then Joseph married 
Mary, but did not know her in the relation of husband 
and wife until after she had “brought forth her first born 
son.” 

If, therefore, Jesus had a human father, it was some 
unknown man and some one who had not been the hus- 
band of Mary. If this is the state of the case, then both 
Joseph and Mary were utterly immoral, tricky, deceitful 
and sinful. 

Such a conclusion, however, is monstrously false, for 
the facts are just as plain and simple in the case of Mary 
as in the case of Joseph. When the angel first spoke to 
Mary and began telling her what was to happen to her, 
it is recorded here that she was perplexed and troubled in 
her mind. Mary knew that she was a pure woman. She 
also knew that to give birth to a child her purity would 

157 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


have to be violated, if the birth came before her marriage. 
So, in absolute bewilderment, she told the angel that she 
was a pure woman, that she had never known a man, and 
in the light of that fact she asked the angel how the thing 
he had said to her could possibly come to pass. Then the 
angel told her that the Holy Ghost would come upon her 
and give her conception by divine power, and that, there- 
fore, the child born of her virgin womb would be “The 
Son of God.” 

Mary was evidently still puzzled and distressed, and it 
was because the angel saw this perplexity, that he told 
her God could do things that to human minds seemed 
impossible; and the angel illustrated this with the state- 
ment that Elisabeth, though she was old and barren, had 
conceived a son in her old age. This son was John the 
Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, and all the circum- 
stances taken together prove the angel’s words that “With 
God nothing shall be impossible.” 

Here, then, is the direct testimony and it is recorded 
for us by unimpeachable witnesses. Who, with a fair and 
open mind, can read these accounts, noting Joseph’s 
chagrin and sorrow, and observing Mary’s doubts and 
questions, and ponder the plain statements of the angel, 
that God, who made man and woman, would beget a holy 
being by His own creative power, and then deny the 
Virgin Birth? The great legal authority, Greenleaf, 
author of “The Law of Evidence,” one of the leading 
legal classics of the world, in another remarkable book 
on “The Testimony of the Evangelists Examined by the 
Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice,” 
approves as good witnesses those whose testimony is 
recorded in the New Testament. He points out that they 
have all the qualities of good and reliable witnesses, 
namely, vigorous, understanding minds, good moral char- 
acter, and no possible motive or reason for telling lies 

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about these matters, even if they had been disposed so 
to do. 

I present here these reasonable presuppositions, these 
venerable records, and these good people as witnesses; 
and if my opponent is to overthrow this age-long and 
holy faith of the Christian Church, then I demand that 
he come into court with evidence more tangible and facts 
more plain than these. It will not suffice for him to pre- 
sent mere doubts or sceptical speculations or guesses of 
unbelieving so-called “scholars.” I present these objec- 
tive realities, these venerable records and true witnesses. 
What are his records and who are his witnesses? 


THE TWO GENEALOGIES 


So powerful and overwhelming is this documentary 
evidence, that its very difficulties are proofs of the virgin 
birth when they are rightly understood. Take, for ex- 
ample, the idea that the virgin birth did not occur because 
there are alleged difficulties in connection with the two 
genealogies of Jesus, as given by Matthew and Luke. 
There is no force to this because, even if there were minor 
difficulties in the genealogies, nevertheless, Matthew and 
Luke, the ones who give us the genealogies, are also the 
very ones who tell us specifically that the virgin birth is a 
fact! They are not so absurd as to thus contradict them- 
selves; and minor difficulties about the genealogies could 
not invalidate the larger fact of the virgin birth, which is 
definitely and specifically stated. 

Instead of these difficulties in the genealogies disprov- 
ing the virgin birth, however, they really constitute in 
themselves a proof of that event. 

Dr. R. A. Torrey, Dean of the Los Angeles Bible Insti- 
tute, in his work on “The Difficulties of the Bible,” clearly 
states the whole case. He says: 

“The genealogy given in Matthew is the genealogy of 


Joseph, the reputed father of Jesus, his father in the eyes 
159 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


of the Law. The genealogy given in Luke is the genealogy 
of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and is the human genealogy 
of Christ in actual fact. In Matthew, Jesus appears as 
the Messiah. In Luke He appears as ‘the Son of Man,’ 
our brother and redeemer, who belongs to the whole race 
and claims kindred with all kinds and conditions of men.” * 


*Dr. Torrey says further: “So in Matthew, the genealogy descends 
from Abraham to Joseph and Jesus, because all the predictions and 
promises touching the Messiah are fulfilled in Him. But in Luke the 
genealogy ascends from Jesus to Adam, because the genealogy is 
being traced back to the head of the whole race, and shows the 
relation of the Second Adam to the first. Joseph’s line is the strictly 
royal line from David to Joseph. In Luke, though the line of descent 
is from David, it is not the royal line. In this Jesus is descended 
from David through Nathan, David’s son indeed, but not in the 
royal line, and the list follows a line quite distinct from the royal 
line. The Messiah, according to prediction, was to be the actual 
son of David according to the flesh (II Sam. 7:12-19; Ps. 89:3, 4, 
34-37% )132°T ts! Acts 2:3905) 13:22 235 Rom. 133k ee 
These prophecies are fulfilled by Jesus being the son of Mary, who 
was a lineal descendant of David, though not in the royal line. 
Joseph who was of the royal line, was not his father according to 
the flesh, but was his father in the eyes of the law. Mary was a 
descendant of David through her father, Heli. It is true that Luke 
2:23 says that Joseph was the son of Heli. The simple explanation 
of this is that, Mary being a woman, her name according to Jewish 
usage could not come into the genealogy, males alone forming the line, 
so Joseph’s name is introduced in the place of Mary’s, he being 
Mary’s husband, Heli was his father-in-law and so Joseph is called 
the son of Heli, and the line thus completed. While Joseph was 
son-in-law of Heli, according to the flesh he was in actual fact the 
son of Jacob (Matt. 1:16). Two genealogies are absolutely necessary 
to trace the lineage of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the one 
the royal and legal, the other the natural and literal, and these two 
genealogies we find, the legal and royal in Matthew’s Gospel, the 
Gospel of law and kingship; the natural and literal in Luke’s, the 
gospel of humanity. We are told in Jer. 22:30 any descendant of 
Jeconiah could not come to the throne of David, and Joseph was of 
this line, and while Joseph’s genealogy furnishes the royal line for 
Jesus, his son before the law, nevertheless, Jesus strictly speaking 
was not Joseph’s descendant and therefore was not of the seed of 
Jeconiah. If Jesus had been the son of Joseph in reality, He could — 
not have come to the throne, but He is Mary’s son through Nathan, 
and can come to the throne legally by her marrying Joseph and so 
clear His way legally to it.” 


160 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


If Jesus had come by ordinary human descent, there 
would have been no difficulty in making up the ge- 
nealogies. Matthew, therefore, who gives one of these 
genealogies, says that the birth of Jesus was “on this 
wise,” which shows that he recognized a difference be- 
tween the generation of Jesus Christ and all those who 
had preceded Him. No law of human generation could 
account for Christ’s birth. Therefore, Matthew says it 
was “on this wise.” How could it be otherwise, since 
“that which is born of the flesh is flesh?’ Since Christ 
is the last Adam, the Lord from heaven, His generation 
must be from heaven, for otherwise he would be like the 
first Adam, earthly, sinful, fallen like us all. 

Matthew, therefore, writing strictly from the Jewish 
standpoint, sets forth in his genealogy the fact that 
through Joseph—the legal father of Jesus, though not his 
father according to the flesh—Jesus is entitled to inherit 
the throne of David. Matthew, therefore, gives the 
genealogy of Joseph to show that Jesus, his adopted son, 
had the legal right of succession. 

Luke, on the other hand, gives the natural genealogy 
of Mary, the mother of Jesus, through Heli, her father, 
who was also a descendant of David, and thus the claim 
of Jesus to David’s throne is established both naturally 
and legally. The Bible teaches that this claim will be 
realized when Christ comes back again. 

So it is true that both Matthew and Luke explicitly 
avoid the statement that Jesus was Joseph’s natural son. 
Matthew changes his regular expression that one “begat” 
the next, etc., and when he comes to Joseph he does not 
say, “Jacob begat Joseph and Joseph begat Jesus.’”’ No, 
he says, “Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, 
of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ” (Matthew 
M10): 

And Luke, also, deliberately avoids the statement that 

161 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


Jesus was Joseph’s natural son. He says: “But Jesus 
himself, began to be about thirty years of age, being (as 
was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son 
of Heli” (Luke 3-23). 

Nor is there any weight to the objection that some 
critics, make to these genealogies, because Matthew says 
Joseph was the son of Jacob while Luke says that Joseph 
was the son of Heli. It is evident, however, that Joseph 
was the natural son of Jacob and the son-in-law of Hell, 
the father of Mary. Dr. Scofield clearly states the matter 
as follows: 

“He could not be by natural generation, the son of both 
Jacob and Heli. But in Luke it is not said that Heli begat 
Joseph, so that the natural explanation is that Joseph was 
the son-in-law of Heli, who was, like himself, a descendant 
of David. That in that case he should be called the son of 


Heli, would be in accord with Jewish usage” (C. I. Scofield’s 
Reference Bible, footnotes on Luke 3:23). 


_ Dr. Scofield refers here to the custom of the Jews to 
trace the line of descent through the father who was the 
legal head of the household, or in some cases through the 
father-in-law. This naturally explains the apparent dis- 
crepancy in this case. 

The fact that Joseph became the legal father of Jesus 
when he married Mary, also quite naturally accounts for 
the reference by Mary, and some others who were critics, 
to Joseph as Jesus’ “father.’”’ We speak today in the 
same way. A wife, in speaking to an adopted child about 
her husband, still says “your father, so and so.” I shall 
deal with this more at length in my rebuttal, if necessary. 

Thus, there are no real facts in the genealogies which 
even reflect on the direct statements of Matthew and 
Luke that Jesus was born of the virgin and that Joseph 
was not his father. On the other hand, the very diffi- 
culties rather confirm the virgin birth. 

162 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE 


“But,” it is said again by doubters, ‘“‘only two of the 
Gospels—Matthew and Luke—record the narratives of 
the virgin birth.” Therefore, it is argued, it did not 
occur, since Mark, John, and Paul, as it is claimed, say 
nothing about it. I shall show that they all assume the 
virgin birth in all their writings, and do refer to it, but I 
merely remark now that even if Mark and John and 
Paul did not refer to it, directly or indirectly, it would 
not alter the fact of the virgin birth at all. Argument 
from silence-—ex silentio—cannot be depended on. The 
thief who claimed he ought to be acquitted because, while 
only two men saw him steal, he could bring forward a 
hundred who did not see him steal, was not acquitted but 
convicted. Two good witnesses are enough, unless there 
is definite and positive evidence contrary to their testi- 
mony. 

The argument from the silence of others cannot over- 
throw the direct testimony of Matthew and Luke. If so, 
then we would have to give up much more of the Bible 
than those beautiful pages containing the record of the 
virgin birth. Only two of the Gospels record the Lord’s 
Prayer. The complete sermon on the Mount is found in 
only one Gospel. Only one Gospel tells of the visit of 
the wise men, the Flight Into Egypt, the visit of Christ 
as achild to the Temple, the stories of the Prodigal Son, 
the Good Samaritan and other incidents of interest and 
value. | 

Indeed, these things are just what we should expect in 
a book like the New Testament, inspired by one author, 
namely the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not guilty 
of redundancy. In inspiring the Gospels, He led Mat- 
thew to tell the story of the virgin birth fully from 
Joseph’s viewpoint, and Luke in “the Woman’s Gospel” — 
fully from Mary’s viewpoint, and that was enough. 

168 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


And these, note you, are the only two Gospels which 
deal with the childhood of Jesus at all. Instead, there- 
fore, of saying ‘The story of the virgin birth is found in 
only two Gospels,” it is more truthful and fitting to say, 
“All the Gospels which deal with the childhood of Jesus 
tell of the virgin birth.” 

But it is not true, as asserted by some, that the New 
Testament has no even indirect reference to the Virgin 
Birth, outside of Matthew and Luke. The truth is that 
the virgin birth was known to all and accepted by all. 
They, therefore, built upon it as a fact in all their teach- 
ings, especially the teachings that touched upon the diety 
of our Lord. It was not necessary then, just as it is not 
necessary now, for Christian preachers and teachers to be 
constantly referring to, defending, and expounding a fact 
of doctrine that was accepted and believed by all. After 
the adequate statement in detail about the matter by Mat- 
thew and Luke, even if it were a fact that other New 
Testament writers do not refer to the virgin birth, it 
would be rather an argument for than against it, because 
it would prove that it was so universally accepted and be- 
lieved that the Holy Spirit did not deem it necessary to 
use up additional space in the New Testament referring 
specifically to it. 

But it is not true that there are no references to the 
virgin birth outside of Matthew and Luke. The New 
Testament writers, in all their utterances, build upon the 
fact of the incarnation and the deity of Christ, and there- 
fore, on his virgin birth. This is what we would expect 
the Holy Spirit to lead them to do about a universally 
accepted truth, and that is just what we find. If neces- 
sary, in my rebuttal, I can point instances illustrating this 
truth. 

THE CHURCH FATHERS 


I call attention also to the established fact that the 
church fathers, immediately after the apostolic age, be- 
164 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


lieved and taught the virgin birth of Christ. It is in the 
old Roman form of the Apostles Creed. Ignatius, Bishop 
of Antioch, who is believed to have been a disciple of the 
Apostles, and who lived from 90 to 150 A. D., in his 
epistles speaks emphatically of the virgin birth. In his 
epistle to the Ephesians he writes: 

“Hidden from the prince of this world were the Virginity 
of Mary and her child-bearing, and likewise also the death 


of our Lord—three mysteries of open proclamation, the 
which were wrought in the silence of God.” 


In his epistle to the Symareans, he says: 


“I give glory to Jesus Christ, the God who bestowed such 
wisdom upon you; for I have perceived that you are estab- 
lished in faith immovable firmly persuaded as touching our 
Lord, that He is truly of the race of David according to the 
flesh, but son of God by divine will and power, truly born 
of a virgin and baptized by John—truly nailed up for our 
sakes in the flesh, under Pontius Pilot and Herod the 
tetrarch.”’ 


Aristides of Athens, in his Apology, written about the 
year 130, writes: 

“The Christians trace their descent from the Lord Jesus 
Christ; now He is confessed by the Holy Ghost to be the 
Son of the Most High God, having come down from heaven 
for the salvation of men, and having been born of a holy 
Virgin—He took flesh and appeared to men.” 


_ Justin Martyr in his first Apology, written between 
140 and 150, says: 

“We find it foretold in the Books of the Prophets that 
Jesus our Christ should come born of a virgin—be crucified 


and should die and rise again, and go up to heaven and 
should both be and be called the ‘Son of God.’ ” 


And so we might quote Irenaeous (190), Tertullian 
(200), Clement (190), Origen (230). 
I have given now, I submit, adequate grounds for ac- 
cepting first the possibility of the virgin birth and, sec- 
165 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


ondly, its probability. I have given next the simple but 
overwhelming documentary and personal evidence, prov- 
ing it as an actual occurrence, and showing that it was 
believed and proclaimed by the Christians from the very 
beginning. I claim, therefore, that it is proved to be a 
fact, as much as any fact of ancient history can be proved. 


IV. AN ESSENTIAL DOCTRINE 


If, then, the virgin birth of Christ is a fact, it is an 
essential Christian doctrine, as the affirmative of our de- 
bate subject says; for who will dare declare that any 
established fact of the Christian system of truth is non- 
essential ? 

1. The virgin birth is an essential Christian Doctrine, 
first, because to deny or reject it is to deny the integrity 
of the Bible and to reject its authority. The facts of 
Christianity are deposited in the records of Christianity, 
and those records are in the Bible. To reject one part 
of the New Testament as untrustworthy, is to invalidate 
it all. It is self-evident to any logical mind that if some 
have the right to tear out of the Bible the clear, detailed, 
and elaborate record of the conception and virgin birth of 
Christ, then others may claim the right to tear out the 
record of the crucifixion, the resurrection, or any other 
part not acceptable to their whimsical taste. Thus, we 
would soon have no Bible—no fixed spiritual standards, 
and no reliable guide for our souls. 

The Bible cannot be thus torn to pieces, because con- 
gruity in the life of Christ demands the virgin birth. 
The Christian Church believes that Christ was a divine as 
well as a human being. If this is true, it makes it un- 
scientific to argue that He entered the world by purely 
human means! A supernatural being requires a super- 
natural birth. Therefore, it is not surprising that Jesus 
Christ was born of the Virgin. It would have been far 
more surprising if he had not been virgin born. 

166 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


Furthermore, the entrance of Christ into the world 
must be in keeping with His exit from the world. We 
cannot take the biography of Jesus piecemeal. We can- 
not separate the beginning and the ending of His marvel- 
ous life. According to the record, He left the world by a 
resurrection and an ascension into heaven. Logic, and 
sound science also, therefore, require that He should 
have entered the world by a descent from Heaven and 
incarnation through the virgin birth. Consequently, the 
resurrection and the virgin birth are forever connected. 
One cannot be destroyed without destroying the other. 
We cannot reject one part of the miraculous life of Christ 
without invalidating all the rest. A Divine being requires 
a divine entrance into the world. 

It just evidently comes down to this, that if we will not 
abide by the record as it is written, and accept the history, 
and if we demand the right to read into the record any 
idea that we may individually like, then we really make 
our own history, and all the recorded history is rendered, 
therefore, utterly worthless. But some of us—the great 
overwhelming majority indeed—believe in and are fully 
satisfied with the record as it is written, and we simply 
refuse to allow the Modernistic tail to wag the Fundamen- 
talist dog! 


UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED 


Secondly, the virgin birth of Christ is an essential 
Christian doctrine because it has been declared so to be 
by all the great branches of the Christian Church. Canon 
Randolph, in his little book, “The Virgin Birth of Our 
Lord,” quotes Professor Zahn of Earlangen as saying: 


“This, (the Virgin Birth) has been an element of the 
Creed as far as we can trace it back; and if Ignatius can be 
taken as a witness of a Baptismal Creed springing from 
early Apostolic times, certainly in that Creed the name of the 
Virgin Mary already had its place. We may further assert 
that during the first four centuries of the church, no teacher 

167 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


and no religious community which can be considered with 
any appearance of right as an heir of original Christianity, 
had any other notion of the beginning of the human life of 
Jesus of Nazareth. The theory of an original Christianity 
without the belief in Jesus the Son of God, born of the 
Virgin Mary, is a fiction.” 

Not only has the doctrine of the virgin birth been in 
the Apostles Creed-from the very beginning, but it has 
been reasserted and reaffirmed in all the great creeds, doc- 
trinal statements and confessions of faith in Christendom. 
It is in the Nicene Creed, the Westminster Confession, 
the Thirty-nine Articles, the Augsburg Confession, the 
Heidelberg Catechism, the Formula Romana, the For- 
mula Graeca et Russica, and the Confessions of faith of 
the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Baptists and other 
great communions. 

In preparation for this debate I sent letters of inquiry 
to the heads or accredited representatives of the Roman 
Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, and the 
outstanding Protestant communions. The replies are 
emphatic in their assertions that all of those great groups 
of Christians accept the virgin birth as a fact, and regard 
it as an essential Christian doctrine. 

Here is a personal letter, for example, from Cardi- 
nal Hayes, of the Roman Catholic Church, in which 
he says most emphatically that his great world-wide 
church accepts “absolutely” as fact the virgin birth, and 
regards it as an essential Christian Doctrine. He then 
takes the trouble to point out to me the historic creeds 
and utterances of their councils from the beginning which 
have set forth this doctrine of the virgin birth. 

The great creeds and confessions of faith of Protestant- 
ism, as before stated, have likewise set forth this doctrine, 
and affirmed and reaffirmed its essential nature. 

Bishop W. T. Manning has given me for his church a 
clear and decisive statement, which may be accepted as 
typical of all others. He says: 

168 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


“We are told today that belief in the virgin birth is unim- 
portant. But the church in whose name we speak does not 
so teach. Brief as the summary of her essential faith is, 
the Church has included in it the affirmation ‘born of the 
Virgin Mary.’ The importance of this article of the creed 
is indicated by the fact that wherever the belief in the Virgin 
Birth becomes weak, belief seems also to become weak in the 
Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord. This present 
movement does not mean only rejection of the Virgin birth, 
of this or that miracle of the Gospel. As Bishop Gore has 
so ably shown, it has its roots in a determined presupposi- 
tion against the possibility of miracle, against the super- 
natural as such, and so against the very message of the 
Gospel as declared in the New Testament. A Christ who 
was not born of the Virgin, who did not rise in the body 
on the third day, and who did not ascend into heaven is 
not the Christ in whom this Church believes and has always 
believed.” 

These things simply mean that practically the whole 
Christian Church from the beginning has declared itself 
as believing, not only in the fact, but also in the essential 
doctrinal value of the virgin birth. 

There is an old maxim of both law and theology which 
teaches that that which is of universal acceptation,—be- 
lieved semper, ubique, et ab omnibus—always, every- 
where, and by all—carries prima facie proof of its truth. 
As completely as any other doctrine, the doctrine of the 
virgin birth of our Lord meets the conditions of this 
maxim. Here is one doctrine upon which Protestants, 
Roman Catholics, and Greek Catholics all stand together. 
Only a few dissenters, like the ancient sceptical Gnostics 
and Ebionites—and some small denominations of today, 
and a handful of individual doubters in each age, like 
Marcion, Celcus, Voltaire, Schrempf, and Thomas Paine, 
have set themselves against it. 

I wish, therefore, to ask my honorable opponent two 
simple but very practical questions: First, if the church 
has not the right to say what is her true and essential 
Christian doctrine, then pray who has sucha right? And, 

169 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


second, if all the great branches of the Church universal 
have declared the virgin birth as true, and as an essential 
doctrine, then what authority is there in the hands of a 
small minority to nullify and overthrow her faith and 
practice? 


EFFICIENCY OF ATONEMENT 


Thirdly : The virgin birth is an essential Christian Doc- 
trine because upon it depends in part the reliability and 
efficiency of the Christian atonement. Only a God-man 
could mediate salvation between God and man. A uni- 
versal Savior must have been capable of an infinite suffer- 
ing to cover the infinite sins of all men from the beginning 
of time to the coming Judgment day. Now an infinite 
being must be a Divine Being; that is to say, God only 
must have been His Father, and, to provide His human 
side, the virgin Mary must have been his mother. 


A FIT OBJECT OF WORSHIP 


Fourthly: The virgin birth is an essential Christian 
doctrine because it alone gives us an adequate object of 
worship. Some say that the Deity of Christ is not de- 
pendent on the virgin birth. Well, God might have given 
His Divine Son to the world by some other miracle than 
the virgin birth, but the Bible,—the record book—says 
that He did give His Son by the virgin birth, and in Him 
we find a fit subject for our devotion. 

What we want and what we need is not a mere model 
or example, but an object of worship; One to whom we 
can look up; One whom we can adore in wonder, and to 
whom we can bring the utmost gratitude of our hearts 
for His saving grace and power! Such a One we find 
in the virgin-born, Christ,—a Being both human and 
divine—over whom the hearts of holy prophets burned 
with divine fervor; about -whom angelic visitors sang 
their songs of peace and good will; to whose manger- 

170 


FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


throne, the wise and the good came from far countries 
to bring their gifts of gold and frank incense and myrrh; 
One for whom the very heavens opened and the voice of 
the Father was heard saying: ‘This is my beloved Son”; 
One whose body was touched by transfiguration glory 
until “His face did shine as the sun and His garments 
became white as the light’’; One who could not only call 
back the lifeless tenant of Lazarus’ tomb, but who, Him- 
self, after a brief repose in the cold embrace of death, 
smashed to pieces its iron bars, broke its bands asunder, 
and stepped forth as Victor over the grave. Yes, One who 
then ascended to the right hand of the Divine Majesty, 
and who is coming again to defeat the Devil, end the sor- 
rows of earth, and establish the reign of unending peace 
and eternal love in “a new Heavens and a new Earth, 
wherein dwelleth righteousness!” 

This is the Being before whom the sinful and weary 
children of men may well come for worship; and such a 
being demands the acknowledgment of entrance into this 
world, not through the channels of sinful conception but 
by way of the altar of a virgin’s womb and through the 
power of the Most High God! 


II 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


In the beginning, I wish to point out that my opponent 
has misstated the ground of my contention that the Virgin 
Birth 1s an essential Christian doctrine. He has sought 
to make it appear that I am arguing that no man can be 
a Christian who does not believe in the Virgin Birth. I 
argued no such thing. The question for debate is: “Re- 
solved, that the Miraculous Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ 
is a Fact, and that it ts an Essential Christian Doctrine.” 
An “essential Christian Doctrine’ not the only essential 
Christian doctrine. There are varieties of view on all 
of the Christian doctrines. And I have not and do not 
argue that the Virgin Birth is an essential Christian doc- 
trine, in the sense that unless one believes it absolutely 
he cannot be a Christian. It is an essential to the full 
rounded system of Christian doctrine, and that is all that 
I or any other Christian teacher, with whom I am familiar 
would hold about it. I must express my surprise, there- 
fore, that my opponent seemingly seeks to twist what I 
said upon this point. He has not shown wherein the 
Virgin Birth is non-essential, and I have shown that it is 
certainly essential in some ways. 

Secondly, there is no disagreement between us as to 
the scientific possibility of the Virgin Birth. As Mr. 
Potter admits that parthenogenesis is a fact among some 
forms of animal life, I pass that by without comment. 


NOT JUST IN ONE VERSE 


Again, my opponent argued that the Virgin Birth can 
be dismissed because, as he alleges, it is really taught in 
172 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


only one verse of the New Testament. This is not true. 
As I showed in my opening speech, the doctrine runs like 
a golden thread through the entire Scripture. It starts 
with that remarkable prophecy in Genesis that “the seed of 
the woman’’—not the seed of the man—would “bruise the 
serpent’s head.”’ It goes on through the prophesies of 
Isaiah that the Savior would be Virgin born (and the 
word in Isaiah means Virgin, regardless of what my 
opponent may try to say to the contrary), until the teach- 
ing culminates in the full and elaborate statements of 
Matthew and Luke. 

As to the point my opponent tried to make about the 
order in which the books of the New Testament were 
written, what has that to do with the question? The 
teaching is in the books, specifically, regardless of the 
precise order in which they were written; and even if 
we grant that Mark wrote the earliest Gospel and that the 
epistles of Paul were also early, it would only mean 
that the Holy Spirit led those Gospel writers to emphasize 
the thing that was most prominently up at the time when 
they wrote and spoke. The urgent testimony in the day 
of Paul and the earliest Gospel writers was the testimony 
concerning the resurrection, the atonement, etc. If it is 
true that Mark and Paul were the earliest writers, then 
it becomes clear that the Holy Spirit emphasizes the thing 
that was then most urgent. So Mark’s Gospel did not 
deal specifically with the childhood of Jesus at all, but 
started with His baptism and public ministry. The full 
detailed statement concerning the miraculous Virgin Birth 
of Christ would thus logically have come along later, 
when Matthew and Luke were inspired to write their 
narratives. 

I deny emphatically, however, that the teaching of the 
Virgin Birth depends upon only one verse. Both of these 
long detailed narratives in Matthew and Luke deal specif- 
ically with that event, and all of the circumstances as to 

173 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


time, place and persons in the narratives simply head 
up, as in any other narrative, in the final statement of 
the fact itself. As Dr. Orr pointed out, these narratives 
of Matthew and Luke would really be meaningless and 
absurd, if the critics had succeeded in deleting the verses 
which specifically state the Virgin Birth, because all the 
other incidents would be entirely uncalled for, without 
that central event around which they cluster. As, for 
example, the statement that Joseph did not know Mary 
as his wife until after she had brought forth her first born 
son, namely, Jesus. One might as well say that the 
baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan by John the Baptist 
is not a fact, because the direct statement of the event 
itself is given only in one verse. But everything that 
leads up to that statement is really a part of it, as, for 
example, that He came from Galilee down to the Jordan, 
and that He came for the express purpose of being bap- 
tized, and that John the Baptist expressed His feeling of 
unworthiness to baptize the Son of God, etc., etc. 


MISQUOTING MARK 


I wish to say, again, however, and most emphatically, 
that I do not admit that Mark and John and Paul did 
not know of the Virgin Birth and did not teach it. All 
that these men knew and taught is not given in the New 
Testament, but there are touches of this doctrine in 
what is given. 

My opponent, for example, quoted a part of the first 
sentence from Mark’s Gospel, but I wish to ask pointedly 
why he did not quote it all. He said that Mark’s Gospel 
starts with the statement: “The beginning of the Gospel 
of Jesus Christ.” But that is not all of that first sen- 
tence of Mark’s. Here is the complete sentence: “The 
beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” 
Why did not my opponent put in that phrase, “The Son 
of God’? That plainly proves that Mark knew who 

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REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


Jesus was, and that He was not the son of Joseph but 
the Son of God. And why did not my opponent quote 
that other verse in the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel 
where it is asserted, in connection with the baptism of 
Jesus: “There came a voice from heaven saying, thou art 
my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Mark 
1:11)? And why did not my opponent give all three of 
the first verses of Mark’s Gospel? Here they are: 


“The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son 

of God; as it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my 
messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way be- 
fore thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Pre- 
pare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’ 
(Mark 1:I-3). 
In every line of this, there is not only the plain implica- 
tion of the miraculous conception and birth of Jesus, as 
the prophets had foretold, and as Mark evidently believed, 
but there is the direct adoption by Mark of the divine 
name for Jesus—‘“Lord.” 


JOHN’S TESTIMONY 


And so, also, of John’s testimony. Listen, please, to 
the first sentence in John’s Gospel: 


“In the beginning was the word [the Logos, the Divine 
Voice, the Christ] and the word was with God, and the 
word was God. All things were made by Him; and with- 
out Him was not anything made that was made. In Him 
was life; and the life was the light of men, And the word 
was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His 
glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full 
of grace and truth” (John 1:3-4-14). 


Who dares say that John did not know anything about 
the Virgin Birth and that he made no reference to it, 
when here he says that the “Word was made flesh’’—not 
conceived in human desire, but “made flesh’’—by the 
power of God, and, therefore, that the Christ was the 
“only begotten of the Father’? That means just what 

175 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


it says,—that God begat Jesus. If that is not a statement 
of the miraculous conception, carrying with it, of neces- 
sity, the Virgin Birth of Christ, then what is it? 

Further Mary, the mother of Jesus, made her home 
with John after the crucifixion. Now it is well known 
that John’s Gospel is the latest of the Gospels. If, there- 
fore, Matthew’s Gospel and Luke’s Gospel did not tell 
the truth about the virgin birth, John would have known 
the truth from Mary, and he would have corrected such 
a wrong statement when he wrote his Gospel.’ 


PAUL'S “SILENCE” 


' The same thing may be said in regard to the argument 
that Paul did not know anything about the virgin birth, 
because he is alleged to have remained silent on the sub- 
ject when he wrote his epistles. But Paul’s great purpose 
in writing his epistles was to emphasize, to make clear 
and to defend other great facts of the Gospel message. 
Like John, Paul knew that the virgin birth would be 
adequately set forth, and that all the followers of Christ 
in that day knew about it. Once more, the fact that Paul 
does not use the actual term “virgin birth,” is an argument 
for the truth of it rather than against it, because it proves 


*Well does Dr. Orr say concerning this matter: “John had un- 
questionably the Gospels of Matthew and Luke in his hands; he 
wrote, as we shall see, at a time when the Virgin Birth was already 
a general article of belief in the Church; it is generally understood 
that one part of his design, at least, was to supplement the other 
Gospels with material from his own recollections. What, then, is 
John’s relation to the narrative of the birth of Christ in these earlier 
Gospels? He knew them. Does he repudiate them? Or contradict 
them? Or correct them? If he does not—and who will be bold 
enough to affirm that he does?—what remains but to believe that he 
accepted and endorsed them? Remember that Mary had been placed 
under John’s guardianship by Jesus Himself, and probably lived in 
his house until she died. Remember also that these stories, if not 
true, could only be interpreted in a way which implied a slur on 
Mary’s good name. Is it conceivable that, if he knew them to be 
false, the Evangelist would have met them with no word of in- 
dignant denial?” (“The Virgin Birth of Christ, Page 109). 

176 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


that the doctrine was so well known and so universally © 
accepted that it needed neither elaboration nor defense. 

Paul does not refer specifically to the miracles of our 
Lord, and to many significant events in His life. But 
we could not argue from this that he did not believe in 
the miracles, or that he had no knowledge of the events 
to which he does not refer. The truth is, that, as with 
John, the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to specialize on the 
great truths of the atonement, the resurrection and the 
return of Christ, as these were liable to misunderstanding 
and abuse. But also, as with John, everything that Paul 
wrote or spoke was founded on the truth of the deity 
and the virgin birth of Christ. I fully anticipated my 
opponent’s argument that Paul knew nothing about the 
Virgin birth because he says that Jesus “was of the Seed 
of David according to the flesh.” 

I showed that Jesus was of the seed of David, accord- 
ing to the flesh, through Mary lis mother, who was a 
descendant of David through Heli her father, Nathan, 
etc. 

Instead of Paul’s stating the opposite of the Virgin 
Birth, as my opponent asserted, his references to Jesus’ 
coming into the world are manifestly founded on the 
fact of the Virgin Birth. Hear him in Colossians 
speaking of Christ as the “first born of every creature,’’— 
thus giving Him preeminence over all, because He was 
the only one born directly by the Father’s power. Hear 
this passage as a whole: 

“Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of 
every creature; for by Him were all things created, that are 
in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether 
they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; 
all things were created by Him, and for Him; and He is 
before all things, and in Him all things consist,” or hold 


together (Col. 1:15-17). 
177 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


Think of the absurdity of Paul speaking in such terms 
as those of any person whom he thought had been con- 
ceived and born in the usual human way. 

Other utterances of Paul, beyond any question, assume 
the fact of the virgin birth. Hear him as he speaks in 
Romans : 


“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak 
through the flesh, God sending His own son [not having a 
man conceive a son] in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for 
sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” (Roman 8:3.) 


Hear him again: 


“But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent 
forth His Son, made of a woman [not born of natural 
human conception, but “made of a woman’’], made under 
the law, to redeem them that were under the law that we 
might receive the adoption of sons.” (Gal. 4:4-5.) 


Hear him again as he says: 


“‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; 
Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be 
equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and 
took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the 
likeness of men: [again “made” not conceived]. And being 
found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became 
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore, 
God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name 
which is above every name. ‘That at the name of Jesus every 
knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, 
and things under the earth, And that every tongue should 
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the 
Father.” (Phil. 2:5-11.) 


Who can stand in the presence of such majestic words 
as these from Paul and say that he did not know that 
Jesus Christ was absolutely unique in His birth and in 
every other way? 

Luke was the bosom friend and traveling companion of 
Paul, in fact, his biographer. The idea, therefore, that 
Luke did not tell Paul the truth which he fully knew 

178 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


about the virgin birth, and that the truth is not behind 
these great statements of Paul, is absurd on the face of it. 
Paul did know and preached the virgin birth. And 
the deity of our Lord which went with it, was the founda- 
tion beneath his very greatest utterances. It was alto- 
gether natural that references to the virgin birth in the 
preaching and teaching of the early church—especially 
while Mary was still alive—should be reserved and not 
bold and open. We would expect just such forms of 
expression about it as we find in these words of Mark and 
John and Paul. 

Dr. Nolan Rice Best, Editor of “The Continent,” well 
says upon this point: 

“The reticence of the evangelists from speculations con- 
cerning the virgin birth seems to be but part of a charac- 
teristic reticence throughout the early church about the fact 
of it. While Mary lived at least, the Christians appear to 
have felt the mystery of her marvellous Child too intimate 
and sacred a matter to be bruited abroad to the world; it was 
a sacred knowledge esoteric to the church,—an incident of 
such delicacy that they would talk of it freely only where 
they were assured that they would be heard with reverence. 
Their historians wrote down the true relation of the matter 
when they undertook to tell of the birth of their Lord; 
fidelity to truth demanded that, and at any rate these works 
were expected to be read chiefly among the faithful.” “Be- 
yond the Natural Order,” page 122.) 


My opponent’s appeal, therefore, to the “argument from 
silence’ breaks down. I repeat, however, what I said 
in my opening speech, that even if John and Mark and 
Paul had not known in the earlier days of their ministry 
the facts about the Virgin Birth, and had not referred 
to it, it would not change the force of the direct and 
specific testimony of Matthew and Luke. Two good 
witnesses, whose testimony stands unimpeached, is enough 
in any court of law or at the bar of reason anywhere. 

179 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


THE LATEST VOICE 


Nor can my opponent’s references to this book by Dr. 
Leighton Parks break the force of the facts about the 
Virgin Birth. It happens that I also received a copy of 
Dr. Parks’ book, and I have it here with me. It is just 
fresh from the press, and it came to my desk only today. 
It may be regarded, therefore, as the very last word on 
the question of the Virgin Birth. Though liberal in his 
views, Dr. Parks makes an effort to be fair, both to the 
Fundamentalists and Modernists. He deals with such 
matters as the argument of the Modernists that the first 
two chapters both of Matthew and Luke were added to 
those Gospels at a late date, but he has to admit that this, 
and all other hypotheses which have been urged for the 
overthrow of the Virgin Birth, are utterly unproved. He 
has to admit this even though he is avowedly sympathetic 
with the Modernistic viewpoints. 

Dr. Parks has to admit, for example, that the text of 
Von Soden, which Dr. Moffatt uses as the basis of his 
translation of Matthew 1:16, is contested by scholars. 
Then Dr. Parks says (page 60): “The question has, of 
course, not been settled.” He has to say, further, in dis- 
cussing the thought that additions had been made to the 
Gospels or changes in them, by later editors: “There are 
many difficulties which such a hypothesis must meet. The 
language is in accordance with the rest of the books, and 
the suggestion that they are inserted as late as the second 
century seems an arbitrary assertion’ (page 64). 

Dr. Parks then, of course, gives the modernistic argu- 
ments about the matter, but the point I wish to make is 
that he has to admit that the critical and sceptical conten- 
tions over the Virgin Birth are not proved—or, as he 
puts it, “settled,’—and that some of their main argu- 
ments seem “arbitrary assertions.” 

Allow me to quote it just the way he puts it. He says: 

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REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


“What, then, are the conclusions which scholars have 
reached in regard to the first Gospel? To speak frankly, 
they have not yet reached definite conclusions” (p. 66). 
And in speaking again of the effort to mutilate Matthew 
and Luke by dropping the verses that directly teach the 
Virgin Birth, Dr, Parks asks “But what right has any 
man to mutilate the text?’ And then he answers his 
own question by saying: “None at all.” And Dr. Parks 
then admits that it is not true that there is no Scriptural 
evidence which gives grounds for the belief that the doc- 
trine of the Virgin Birth expresses a historical fact. 
While, therefore, Dr. Parks leans to the modernists, he 
has nevertheless to admit that the critical contentions 
against the Virgin Birth are unproved. 

This, then, is the very latest voice on the subject, and 
I merely add it to the statements of Dr. Orr, and the 
exposures already given of the arbitrary and unjustifiable 
methods of such critics as Wellhausen, Harnack, etc. 
These things, I submit, are adequate to dispose of all the 
critical contentions which my opponent has tried to bring 
in. 

UNJUSTIFIABLE PROCEDURE 


It is a revolutionary and unjustifiable procedure to try 
to deny such a fact as the Virgin Birth by merely en- 
deavoring to reject in whole or to mutilate in part the 
records which give the account of that event. 

Supposing a lawyer should come into court and declare 
that he no longer individually accepted a certain cardinal 
principle of the common law, as recorded say, in Black- 
stone; and that he also refused to abide by the record 
made in a famous case, which had become an established 
precedent for all like cases. Supposing he should take 
that position in trying to win his case, which involved 
the precise principle and the well established precedent 
which he was rejecting? Does anyone doubt that court 
and jury alike would declare against him without a 
moment’s delay? My honorable opponent and the mod- 

181 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


ernists in general are precisely in that position, in their 
efforts to reject one after the other the great facts and 
doctrines of the Christian religion. 

For any one who has honest difficulties with the miracles 
of the Bible there should be charity and patience. Such 
an one merits faithful effort on the part of believers to 
persuade him of the fundamental fact that the universe 
is primarily not a mere material machine but a spiritual 
order and, therefore, that miracles are inevitable. But 
there is a type of mind that does not believe because it will 
not believe. It is predisposed to unbelief, and seeks rather 
confirmation of its own doubts than revelation of the 
truth. One who demands more proof than naturally 
belongs to any matter at issue arouses the suspicion that 
he is really seeking to evade belief rather than to attain 
it. And surely the proof for the Virgin Birth is clear 
and abundant enough for all who will accept it. 

Just see what unbelief in the Virgin Birth leads to. If 
we reject this record, then we practically assert, that all 
of these witnesses are liars. Joseph, who is described 
here as “a just man,” who alone could have told about 
his dream, and the other matters connected with his side 
of the incident, who knew that he was not the father of 
the unborn child, and who changed his merciful plan to 
put Mary away privily, after the angel revealed to him 
that God was the father, and who declared that he did 
not know Mary in the relationship of husband and wife 
until after the birth of Jesus; Mary who alone could 
nave told of the marvelous experiences through which 
she passed, and who declared specifically to the angel that 
she was a pure woman—that she had never “known a 
man” ;—Matthew, an experienced business man, who in 
the light of the facts presented to him said, “Now the 
birth of Jesus was on this wise’; Luke, who has been 
commended for his accuracy by Sir William Ramsay, 
and other modern scholars, Luke, who was a scientist and 

182 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


physician, and a historian so careful and exact that he 
introduces his gospel by saying: “Forasmuch as many 
have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration 
of those things which are most surely believed among us, 
even as they delivered them unto us, which from the 
beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers, of the word. 
It seemed good to me also, having had perfect under- 
standing of all things from the very first, to write unto 
thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou might- 
est know the certainty of those things; wherein thou 
hast been instructed” (Luke 1:1-4) ; Elizabeth, who tells 
us that she was so strangely moved by these miraculous 
events that she called Mary “the mother of my Lord’; the 
prophet Simeon, having a reputation, according to the 
narrative, as a “just and devout man,’ to whom it was 
revealed that he should see the Messiah, and, who when 
he saw the infant Jesus in the temple, recognized Him as 
the Heaven-sent Messiah, took him up in his arms, 
blessed God, and said: 


“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, accord- 
ing to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, 
which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a 
light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people 
Israel” (Luke 2 :29-32). 


The aged prophetess Anna, famous for her piety, fastings 
and prayers, who gave thanks unto God when she saw 
the infant Jesus and who spake of Him to “all them that 
looked for redemption;”’ the Angel Gabriel, who said 
to the Virgin: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee 
and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. 
and that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be ~ 
called the Son of God;’—all of these are either self- 
deluded, crack-brained fanatics, or else deliberate falsi- 
fiers, unless the virgin birth is a true fact, as recorded. 
It is not true, as my opponent said, that Luke’s narra- 
tive concerning the Virgin Birth has nothing stronger 
183 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


than the angel’s prophecy that Mary the Virgin would 
conceive and bring forth the Son of God by the Holy 
Spirit. On the other hand, Luke records Mary’s spe- 
cific statement that the thing which the angel had told her 
would come to pass had actually come to pass m her. 
Mary said to Elizabeth: 

“My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath re- 
joiced in God my Savior, for He hath regarded the low estate 
of His handmaiden. For Behold! All generations shall 
call me blessed. For He that ts mighty hath done to me 
great things and holy is His name,’ (Luke 1:46-49). 

Here is a direct statement that God had actually per- 
formed that which the angel had prophesied. The twist- 
ing of this matter by my opponent is a capital illustration 
of how modernists strain and tug to wrest even Holy 
Scripture, in their effort to make good on their own sub- 
jective scepticisms and naturalistic theories. The Mod- 
ernists even endeavor to make the Bible itself say just 
the exact opposite of what it is trying to say to us. The 
glorious truth of the Virgin Birth has suffered more than 
almost any other Bible doctrine by these unfair methods, 
and it is because of the fact that the attack here is merely 
the beginning of a wider attack on Bible doctrines in 
general. Just as Bishop Manning said in his letter, from 
which I quoted, the attack is not merely on the Virgin 
birth, but it is on all miracles—in fact on the super- 
natural in any form. 


NO SELF-CONTRADICTIONS 


My opponent’s statements that Luke and Matthew 
contradict themselves in connection with the genealogies, 
and therefore are not good witnesses, are also wholly 
without warrant. The facts are, as I set forth in my 
first speech, that Matthew gave the legal genealogy of 
Jesus through Joseph, his legal father, and Luke the nat- 
ural genealogy through his Mother, by Heli, her father, 
etc. 

184 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


It is simply absurd to argue that a careful business man 
like Matthew, and a trained scientist and scrupulously 
exact historian like Luke would contradict themselves 
within three chapters of their own works. There is no 
contradiction, and they are both thoroughly competent 
witnesses. But even if there were difficulties in the gene- 
alogies, these difficulties on minor questions cannot pos- 
sibly nullify the direct and explicit statements of both 
these authors that the Virgin Birth was a fact. 


WHY THE BIBLE REFERS TO JESUS AS “JOSEPH’S SON” 


Nor can my opponent’s references to the few places 
where the Bible refers to Jesus as “Joseph’s son” break 
the force of all this. I really anticipated this point in my 
first speech, and covered it in brief, but I will now cover 
it more fully in closing. It is perfectly evident that these 
references to Jesus as “Joseph’s son” were founded upon 
the fact that Jesus was the legal or adopted son of Jos- 
eph, and that adequately accounts for them all. Take the 
case of the question in Matthew 13:55: “Is not this the 
carpenter’s son?’ This question was asked by the un- 
believing Jews of Nazareth. The community of un- 
believers there, of course, would not know the inside facts 
about Jesus’ miraculous birth. It was natural for them, 
therefore, to ask the question in just that way. Where 
this expression was used by Philip it was used when he 
first met Jesus and, therefore, probably before he had 
learned all of the inside facts as to Jestus’s miraculous 
origin. Philip said: “We have found him, of whom 
Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of 
Nazareth, the son of Joseph’ (John 1:45). But at 
worst this could mean nothing more than in the other 
cases,—a recognition that Joseph was the legal father of 
Jesus. As to the question in John 6:42 where it is 
written: “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose 
father and mother we know?” These words were spoken 
also by critical, faultfinding Jews who were not disciples, 

185 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


and they are given in the Bible only as a quotation from 
such people. 

In the case where Mary herself, when she found Jesus 
in the Temple, after he had been lost, said to Him— 
“Behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing,” 
it is evident that there was no other form in which she 
could put the statement, since Jesus was Joseph’s adopted 
son. But that Mary had given to Jesus some informa- 
tion about the miraculous and marvelous manner of His 
birth is indicated in Jesus’s reply to her statement that 
she and His “father” had sought Him sorrowing. It is 
written here: “He said unto them, how is it that ye 
sought me; wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s 
business.”’ Did not Jesus quite delicately here remind 
His mother that He knew that His real father was the 
heavenly Father? Must he not have put the emphasis on 
the word “my’’—‘“my father’? That there was some 
such deeper meaning in this conversation, is indicated 
further by the statement which Luke makes that while 
Jesus went back with his parents to Nazareth and was 
subject unto them, nevertheless, “His mother kept all 
these sayings in her heart” (Luke 2:48-51). In fact, 
that Mary all the way saw something of the deeper mean- 
ing of the miraculous manner of Jesus’ birth is indicated 
by this and other such expressions, as, for example, when 
she said to those at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, 
before Jesus performed his miracle of turning the water 
into wine: ‘“Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” (John 
225)). 

And that Jesus also understood His unusual earthly 
origin is proved by such expressions from Him as “I 
am from above” (John 8:23); and “I know whence I 
came” (John 8:14) ; and “the Father that sent me’ (John 
8:16) ; and again where Jesus said emphatically to His 
foes: “If God were your Father, ye would love me: for 
I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of 

186 


REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


myself (that would be by natural means), but he sent me” 
(John 8:42). 

The argument, therefore, that the explicit teachings of 
the Bible that Jesus was virgin born and that He was not 
Joseph’s natural son should be rejected because of these 
references to Him as “‘Joseph’s son’”—are simply not ten- 
able. Such references were precisely what we have today 
under similar circumstances. I once had a family in my 
church in which there was an adopted son. I did not 
know until I had been pastor of the church for four years, 
and had been often in that home, that the boy was really 
an adopted son. He referred to his foster father as 
“father,” and the father always referred to him as his 
“son.” These references, therefore, to Jesus as ‘‘Joseph’s 
son” are perfectly plain, and they are simply overwhelmed 
by the disclosure of the unquestionable facts in the other 
parts of the records, where it is plainly taught that He 
was not the natural son of Joseph but that He came by 
miraculous conception and Virgin Birth. 


SUMMARY 


It all comes down, at last, then, to this: We have here 
this unbroken, historic record, namely, the Bible; and we 
have also the testimony of these good men and women 
concerning the virgin birth and the events that cluster 
around it. Now on what grounds are we asked to reject 
these records and to declare the testimony of these wit- 
nesses false? On no ground whatever that I have ever 
been able to find, or that my opponent has given here, 
except just plain scepticism, stubborn doubts, and a lot 
of pedantic jargon spun from the nebulous intangibility 
of subjective ideas, rather than the solid substance of 
objective reality and historic fact! 

On one side, as Dr. Orr, Dr. MacNaugher, and a host 
of other scholars have proved, are all of the unmutilated 
manuscripts and all the trustworthy versions contain 

187 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


these accounts of the virgin birth. And on the other side, 
only two or three documents of doubtful standing, about 
which the sceptical scholars themselves do not agree, and 
which were evidently mutilated by doubters. The virgin 
birth of Jesus is a question of historic fact. The fact 
is asserted and testified to by witnesses. These asser- 
tions and the record of this testimony are in the Bible. 
To disprove the fact and win this debate it was necessary 
for my opponent to show that the Bible record of the 
virgin birth is unbelievable and that the witnesses that 
testify concerning it are untrustworthy. Now I submit 
that he simply has not done this. He has made a brilliant 
effort, and has done just as well as any doubter can do, 
but the facts are simply against him. Mere minor difficul- 
ties over this secondary matter or the other, such as occur 
in connection with any event of ancient history, cannot 
break the force of the main facts— 
Therefore, I ask a decision for the affirmative. 


NO REFLECTION UPON MARY OR MARRIAGE 


I wish to say, in closing, that there is no ground for 
my opponent’s contention that the Virgin Birth of Christ 
is any reflection upon the sanctity of marriage or any 
“insult,” as he expressed it, to that holy estate. Jesus 
was absolutely unique, and it was necessary that, as the 
sinless Savior of the world, He should be miraculously 
conceived and born of the virgin. So far from it being 
true that there is any reflection upon marriage in the 
Virgin Birth of our Lord, it is rather true that the respect 
and veneration which the world has given to Mary, the 
virgin mother of our Lord, has been one of the greatest 
bulwarks of the sanctity of the marriage vow and one 
of the finest influences for increasing humanity’s respect 
for womanhood and motherhood. 

I close, therefore, with a further word of defence of 
the virgin Mary. To deny these Bible records and to 

188 





REBUTTAL FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 


assert that Jesus was not virgin born, is really to cast 
reproach upon Mary’s good name. The angel Gabriel 
said that Jesus was “the Son of God.” Ii now He was 
the Son of God, then He was God’s Son and not Joseph’s 
son. Joseph made it perfectly plain that he was not the 
father of Jesus, and if Joseph was not the father of Jesus, 
then, unless Gabriel’s statement is true, He was the Son 
of some unknown man and was born out of wedlock. 
Therefore, He was a bastard, and Mary His Mother was 
both a liar and an impure woman. 

Such a conclusion is revolting, horrible, and utterly un- 
reasonable, in the light both of the Bible record and the 
after influence of Jesus of Nazareth and Mary His 
mother. 

Rather than cast such a reproach upon her, therefore, 
we should stand by the Bible’s declaration that all the 


after ages should “call her blessed.” Because she was so 


highly honored of God: because the very angels of para- 
dise spoke to her face to face; because she was the con- 
necting link between earth and heaven; because her pure 
body was the channel through which the Son of God 
came to save the world; because Jesus’ first look of awak- 
ening consciousness rested upon her beautiful face and 
His last agonized glance from the cross beheld her; be- 
cause she was willing to discharge the duties of mother- 
hood; because she did a true woman’s work in the world; 
because her soul walked in fellowship and communion 
with God; we hold her up as the ideal woman, wife and 
mother of all the ages. We magnify the Lord with her, 
we magnify the Lord for her, and with all the genera- 
tions,—past, present and future,—we “call her blessed |” 


189 


ty 
Vee 


' ne. is 
(MARA Es 





FOUR: WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD 
AND MAN? 


I 
FOR THE NEGATIVE 


QUESTION : 
RESOLVED, THAT JESUS CHRIST WAS ENTIRELY Man 
INSTEAD OF INCARNATE DEITY 


Mr. Chairman, Honorable Judges, Mr. Potter, Ladies and 

Gentlemen : 

Dr. Straton: It is a self-evident truth that there can 
be no given effect without an adequate cause. This is 
just as true in connection with a personality as it is in 
the field of material facts. 

The unique and extraordinary elements in Jesus Christ 
demand a unique and extraordinary Cause to have pro- 
duced such an Effect as He was. It is simply impossible 
to account for Him on any ordinary or naturalistic 
grounds! 

The very paradoxes of His life forbid it. Though He 
is recognized as the most remarkable character of all time, 
yet, strange to say, He was not of the great. He was 
born among the lowly and the poor. He was a carpenter 
by profession, and nearly all His life was spent amid the 
humble surroundings of an obscure and despised village 
in Galilee. He made no discovery of science; He wrote 
no book; He built no city; He effected no military con- 
quest; He left behind Him no colossal fortune. He 
gathered about Himself a little handful of obscure and, 
for the most part, ignorant disciples who, at the time of 
His supreme crisis deserted Him and scattered in con- 


191 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


fusion and despair. His enemies completely triumphed 
over Him. He was crucified between two thieves. His 
lifeless body was committed to a tomb that was not His 
own; and to make sure that He would no longer harass 
them, His powerful foes had a guard of soldiers stationed 
at its mouth, and the seal of Rome placed upon the stone. 

Measured now by all historic precedent, and by any 
human standard, what is to become of that man ?—of His 
name and His influence? Under such circumstances who 
would be so bold as to prophesy anything but that He 
would be speedily forgotten, even as the thousands of 
others before Him who had died upon the cross? 

But such is not the case. The name of that humble 
man now shines as the sun in the central dome of history! 
Though He was not of the great, yet He was supremely 
great. Without the learning of the schools, He has be- 
come the Teacher of the world. Without the aid of 
fortuitous circumstances, He has become the most vital 
Force for righteousness ever known to mankind. The 
mightiest achievements of the race in art, literature, 
science, and governmental relationships are traceable to 
His influence. The most majestic temples on earth stand 
in His honor. The greatest power and enlightenment of 
the world belong to the nations which follow Him. About 
His personality, the tides of interest and discussion down 
the centuries have flowed, and around His name have re- 
volved the most vital events of the past two thousand 
years. He has literally changed the face of the earth, 
revolutionized religion, and given a new direction to the 
history of mankind.* 

* There can no longer be any dispute over the fact of an historic 
Christ. The myth theory has been exploded, and the idea that Jesus 
was a literary invention has also been abandoned, even by unbelievers, 
as impossible. John Stuart Mill in his essay on “Religion,” though 
not an orthodox believer, nevertheless repudiates the view that Christ 
was not historical, declaring that it is absurd to think that the rude 


rustics and fishermen of Galilee or the early Christian writers could 
have created such a character. Renan admits that there must have 


192 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


In the face, then, of such seeming contradictions and 
paradoxes, is there any wonder that the human mind, 
awestruck and puzzled, has adopted the question which 
He Himself put to His foes, and has asked down the 
ages: ‘““What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He?’ 
We have to give some answer to that age-long question. 
We have to adopt some theory to account for Jesus 
Christ. What theory, then, best takes in all the facts P— 
the facts of His parentage, birth, achievements and char- 
acter? 

I reply with absolute confidence, and without a 


been some basis of fact for the Gospel narratives. He says, “So far 
from Jesus having been created by his disciples, He appears in every- 
thing as superior:” and the French skeptic Rousseau said, “The Gos- 
pel has marks of truth so great, so striking, so perfectly inimitable 
that the inventor of it would be more astonishing than the hero. If 
the life and death of Socrates, are those of a sage, the life and death 
of Jesus are those of a God.” While another has said, “It would take 
Jesus to forge a Jesus.” 
Dr. A. H. Strong has well said: 


“No sources can be assigned from which the evangelists could 
have derived such a conception. The Hindu avatars were only 
temporary unions of deity with humanity. The Greeks had men 
half-deified, but no unions of God and man. The monotheism of 
the Jews found the person of Christ a perpetual stumbling-block. 
No mere human genius, and much less the genius of Jewish 
fisherman, could have originated this conception. Bad men invent 
only such characters as they sympathize with. But Christ’s char- 
acter condemns badness. Such a portrait could not have been 
drawn without supernatural aid” (Systematic Theology, page 89). 


In addition to the well known passages in Josephus, there are a few 
historical references to Jesus—as many as might be expected when 
the scorn of the early Romans for such a religion as Christianity is 
remembered. 

Tacitus, in his “Annals” (15:44), says: “The author of this name 
(i. e., of Christians) was put to death during the procuratorship of 
Pontius Pilate while Tibererius was emperor.” Pliny writes: “and 
they sing a hymn to Christ as God.” Suetonius (Lives of the Cesars, 
Claudius, XXV) writes: “The Emperor Claudius drove the Jews 


from Rome, because, excited by Chrestus, they kept up a continual 
uproar.” 


193 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


moment’s hesitation, only the theory that He was not 


only the Son of Man but, in a unique sense He was also” 
the Son of God. It is simply impossible to take in all 
the facts concerning Christ on any ground other than that 


He was an actual incarnation of deity, coming into our 


world by a superhuman intervention, from a world higher 
than anything which we understand by the term 


‘natural.’ 


NO “COMPLIMENTS” FOR JESUS . 


Nor can these matters be dismissed by merely compli- 


menting Jesus. I think that I can speak for Him in say- 


ing that He does not care for our compliments. Certainly 
He wants no compliment from those who condescend to_ 


Him; who shower upon Him fulsome praise; who say 


i 


that He was the leading prophet of all time, the noblest 
example and pattern of virtue, the greatest and best of all 
the children of men; and yet that He was only a man, 
at last; that He was merely “a child of His own times,” 


as they express it; that, when rightly viewed, He was 
really not as great as some of the Modernists, because He 
did not have our scientific knowledge or understanding of 
the world; and that, since He lacked our modern “‘scholar- 
ship,’ He really did not rightly interpret the Hebrew 
Scriptures. “He that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh!” 
And surely the laughter of God must be stirred by the 
spectacle of puny men, in their pride of “scholarship” and 
vanity of mind, condescending even to the Almighty, try- 
ing to measure an infinite universe with the yard-stick of. 
their finite minds, and patting Jesus Christ complacently 
on the back as a “Good Fellow” but “really, now, you 
know, no God”’! : 
Nor does it alter the matter even though the hand that 
seeks to take the diadem from His brow is a “polite” 
hand. Jesus Christ simply does not care for our compli- 
194 : 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


ments, even though they come from sincere, though self- 
deluded minds. Nicodemus—a great man and a ruler 
of the Jews—once complimented Him most enthusias- 
tically; but Jesus replied to him bluntly by saying: “Ye 
must be born again”; and, “except a man be born again 
he cannot see the kingdom of God.” He cannot even see 
it, much less enter into it. And then Jesus pointed him 
to His own uplifted cross as the way of regeneration and 
everlasting life. (John 3 :3-7.) 

Rousseau, Renan, Bolingbroke, Voltaire and many 
other unbelievers and infidels have complimented Jesus. 
Robert G. Ingersoll even paid Him glowing compliments. 
He said of Him: 

“His life is worth its example—its moral force, its heroism 
of benevolence. For that name I have infinite respect and 
love. To that great and serene man I gladly pay the homage 
of my admiration and my tears.” 

And yet Ingersoll lived and died an unbeliever, and 
wrecked the faith of multitudes. 

Jesus wants something better than such condescension. 
He deserves and demands not our patronage but our 
obedience and worship. Rather than the empty words of 
Ingersoll, He wants such faith as was in the heart of 
Shakespeare, the world’s greatest literary genius. Shake- 
speare said in his will: 

“TI commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, 
hoping and assuredly believing, through the merits of Jesus 
Christ my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting.” 

Jesus wants what was in the heart of William E. Glad- 
stone, the noblest statesman of his generation, who said: 

“All that I think, all that I hope, all that I write, all that 
I live for, is based upon the deity of Jesus Christ, the central 
joy of my poor, wayward life.” 

That is the attitude of faith which Jesus Christ de- 

195 


\ 


Ly 
WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? : 


serves, and He will accept no other! For that faith T 
contend in this debate. 


THE QUESTION FOR DEBATE 


The question for debate is “Resolved, that Jesus Christh 
was Entirely Man Instead of Incarnate Deity.” Deity | 
means God, and incarnate means to clothe with flesh, to. 
embody in flesh. | 

In championing the affirmative of this subject, my 
opponent has undertaken the task of disproving the deity 
of Jesus Christ by showing that He was entirely—that is 
exclusively and altogether—man, and not incarnate deity 
not God embodied in the flesh. 

To accomplish this, my opponent must be Me, 
going and exhaustive. If Jesus went beyond mere man-_ 
hood at any point and to any degree, then He was not. 
entirely and exclusively man, but must have been in part 
God. He must have been incarnate deity; or, as stated 
usually, He must have been divine. . 

Now the faith on which the Christian church is built is 
faith in the deity of Jesus Christ. To worship a mere 
man is idolatry, and the uncounted millions of Christians 
down the centuries have not been idolaters. They have 
worshipped Jesus Christ as the only divine Son of God. 

Because, therefore, he seeks to overthrow that faith, 
the burden of proof is upon my opponent. He must 
prove, by sound reasoning and facts that are understand- 
able to our minds and hearts, that the faith in the deity 
of Jesus Christ which has rejuvenated mankind, redeemed 
sinners, built schools, hospitals, orphanages and asylums 
the world over, erected unnumbered churches, sent mis- 
sionaries to all heathen countries, and given humanity its 
only touch of true brotherhood and its only rational hope 
of heaven, is without foundation and is a false faith. Tr . 
submit that he has by no means done this in his opening: 
speech, and I shall reply in my rebuttal to what he has said. 

196 


—— 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


THE TASK OF THE NEGATIVE 


My task in the debate, therefore, is simple. It is to 
meet my opponent’s efforts to prove that Jesus Christ was 
a mere man—for that is what it all comes down to—with 
the facts which prove (until they are disproved and over- 
thrown) that He was more than man—that He was an 
absolutely unique personality. We both agree that He was 
a real man, a man of like passions with ourselves; and yet 
I contend that He was different from all other men, in 
that He had both a human and a divine nature in the one 
Personality. 

I will go just as far as my opponent in glorifying the 
manhood of the Master and in recognizing the value of 
His human influence and example. He was a true man. 
He had a human mother, a material body like all other 
men, a body which wearied and suffered and which in 
every sense was wonderfully human. Jesus had the af- 
fections, the mentality, the emotions, the spirit of a true 
man. Jesus had a human soul as well as a human body. 
He was a true and perfect man in every sense of the word 
“man.” 

I recognize, too, that it is difficult for our finite minds 
to comprehend the combination of God and man. It seems 
strange to us that these two aspects of Jesus could abide 
united in one person. We are not to think of God becom- 
ing a man, nor indwelling a man, nor deifying a man, 
but we are to think of a God-Man. He is God manifest 
in Flesh. God did not unite Himself to a human being, 
but became a human, while still remaining God. 

It is said that “the Christ of Scripture is not reason- 
able.” But even if this were granted, it would only prove 
the genuineness of Christ. We do not have to under- 
stand Jesus before we can accept and follow Him. We 
do not have to reason Christ out. Indeed, we cannot 
reason Christ out. The God-Man is a Miracle, and a 

197 


: 
‘ 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


miracle is not bound or answerable to human laws and 


rules. Faith must be brought into operation in thinking 
and dealing with this God-Man, the Redeemer. Indeed, 


we are surrounded on every side by mysteries that we 


. 


J 
¥ 


cannot understand, and yet that we constantly use, even 
in the most practical affairs of life. We have to walk 


by faith not sight.” 

But even though we cannot fully understand it, never- 
theless, the facts prove that He was and is the God-Man— 
an actual incarnation of deity, and the second person in a 
divine trinity. I deny, therefore, the affirmation that 
Jesus was only a man—however great and good He is 
admitted to have been—and I assert that He was incarnate 


deity. And with the issue thus clearly defined, I feel that - 


u 


| 


| 


: 


my task is comparatively easy, for the proofs of the | 


uniqueness and deity of Jesus Christ are overwhelming! 
These proofs are found in the Bible. The Bible is our 


source of knowledge about these things. If its teachings — 
are accepted as true, then the way is clearly opened for a 
sane solution of this problem as to whose son Jesus is. If 
the Bible teaching is rejected, then we can only continue 


to flounder in the quagmire of doubt and unbelief. 


My argument, therefore, will be as follows: First, that — 
the general teachings of the Bible set Christ forth as a. 
divine being. Second, that its specific teachings picture — 
Him as having all the attributes of God, and therefore 


that He is God. Third, that He Himself explicitly claimed 
to be divine, and unless this claim was true, then He was 


either a fool or a knave; and fourth, I shall show from — 


His after influence that Jesus of Nazareth was more than 


man, that He was the divine Son of God—incarnate deity. — 


J. THE GENERAL TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE 
My first argument is that the general teachings of the 
Bible prove that Jesus Christ was incarnate deity. 
To begin with, the Bible sets forth Christ as Creator. 


The very first verse of Genesis has a reference to Him | 


198 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


where it is written: “In the beginning God created the 
heavens and the earth.” That this creation of our world 
was by and through the Christ who finally walked the 
earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, other Scriptures 
make amply clear. The Apostle John, for example, says: 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. 
All things were made by Him. And the Word was made 
flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the 
glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and 
truth.” (John 1 :1-4.) 

Here John states that the Word—Christ—was in the 
beginning,—was the God who made all things, and that 
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. 

The Apostle Paul, in all his writings, recognizes the 
same great truth of the creative power of Christ. He 
says: 

“For by Him were all things created that are in heaven, 
and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be 
thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers: all things 
were by Him and for Him and He is before all things, and 
by Him all things consist.” (Col. 1:16.) 

And in Hebrews 1:10 it is specifically said: 

“And Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation 
of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.” 

The context here clearly shows that the Lord addressed 
in this passage is the Lord Jesus. Thus it becomes per- 
fectly clear that the God of the first verse of Genesis was 
none other than the Christ of the New Testament. 

The Bible not only teaches that Christ was Creator, 
however; it also teaches that He is the only Re-Creator— 
the only Saviour. The very first prophecy in the Bible— 
that the “seed of the woman” would bruise the serpent’s 
head—had to do with Christ, because the other prophecies 
that followed after, and that avowedly were fulfilled in 
the coming of Christ, clearly so state. Isaiah, with pro- 
phetic prevision, said “A virgin shall conceive and bear a 
son and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). 

199 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


And Isaiah further identified this coming virgin-born © 
Saviour as God by giving Him divine names. He called 
Him “The Mighty God,” the “Everlasting Father,” “The 
Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6.) t 
Now the New Testament specifically identifies Jesus” 
Christ as this One who was to be born of a virgin and 
who was described in advance as God. Luke tells us that 
the angel Gabriel” was sent from God to Nazareth, and 
that there he appeared to the Virgin Mary and told her 
that the Holy Ghost would come upon her, that the power 
of the Highest would overshadow her, and that a holy 
Being, thus conceived by divine power, would come from 
her womb. The angel told Mary that she would “call” 
His name Jesus,” but that He would be the “Son of God” | 
(Luke 1:26-35). Then Mary, as reported further by 
Luke, declared to her cousin Elizabeth that what the angel 
promised had actually come to pass. Mary said: “He that — 
is mighty hath done to me great things, and holy is His © 
name” (Luke 1:49); and because of the One who was - 
thus to be born of her womb, Mary said that all genera- 
tions would call her “‘blessed.”’ 
Matthew also takes up the story. He starts his nar- 
rative, by saying: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on ~ 
this wise.” Then he tells us that Joseph, to whom the 
Virgin Mary was espoused, or “engaged” as we would | 
say, found, before they came together, that Mary was with © 
child. Then Joseph planned to put Mary away privily, 
to hide her shame, but he was told in a dream by the 
angel of the Lord not to be afraid to take Mary as his 
wife, because that which was conceived in her was con- 
ceived by the Holy Ghost. And Matthew says that 
Joseph, when he awakened from his dream, did as the 
angel told him and took unto him his wife, but did not — 
know her in the relation of husband and wife “until she- 
had brought forth her first born son” whom they called 
Jesus. 
200 





FOR THE NEGATIVE 
Then Matthew says: 


“Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was 
spoken of the Lord by the prophet [Isaiah] saying: behold, 
a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and 
they shall call His name Immanuel, which being interpreted, 
is God with us” (Matthew 1:18-25). 


Now, this absolutely identifies Jesus Christ as the one 
who was to be “the mighty God, the everlasting Father, 
and the Prince of Peace.” 

The matter is further confirmed by Luke, who tells us 
how Mary brought forth Jesus, and how the angels told 
the shepherds that the One thus born in the City of David 
was the “Saviour—Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). 

Now that this One, thus conceived by God Himself and 
born of the Virgin, was really Jehovah—God manifested 
in the flesh—is confirmed and explicitly declared. 

In Matthew 3 :1-3 it is written: 


“In those days came John the Baptist, saying repent ye, for 
this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, 
the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the 
way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” 


The word for Lord used by Isaiah, and as quoted by 
John, is Jehovah (Yaveh) which means Very God 
(Isaiah 40:3). So that the One whom John the Baptist 
thus proclaimed—Jesus Christ—was the Lord Jehovah, 
Very God. The Greek word “Kurios,” translated “Lord” 
in the New Testament, is the equivalent of the Hebrew 
designation of Deity. The Septuagint uses “Kurios” 
when rendering Adonay, Eloah, and Elohim into Greek.? 


*? The “Messiah,” though in some sense different from Jehovah, is 
nevertheless recognized, even in the Old Testament, as One with 
Jehovah. 

The following passages will illustrate this: “Unto us a child is 
born, unto us a Son is given . . . and His name shall be called 
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of 
Peace” (Isaiah. 9:6); “thou Bethlehem ... which art little ... 
out of thee shall come forth unto me that is to be Ruler in Israel; 


201 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


The Bible plainly teaches, then, that the conception and 
birth of Jesus Christ were different from those of all other 
men. ‘The Bible plainly teaches that Joseph was not the 
natural but only the Jegal father of Jesus, because it tells 
us that when Joseph learned that Mary was with child 
before their marriage he was so shocked that he planned 
to put her away, until the angel told him that the Holy 
Ghost was the child’s father. The angel told Mary that 
the Holy thing thus conceived in her was to be the “Son 
of God,” and after His birth He was so recognized. As, 
then, He was not the Son of Joseph but was conceived by 
God the Holy Ghost, He was God’s “only begotten Son,” 
just as declared by the Bible; and, therefore, He was more 
than man, He was incarnate deity. That is to say, He 
was God manifested in human flesh. 

The Bible makes this plain in many other places. 

In the acts of the Apostles it is written: 

“The Church of God, which He hath purchased with His 
own blood” (Acts 20:28). 

It was Christ who shed His blood upon the cross to 
purchase the church, and since it is called the church of 
God, therefore, it was God who made the sacrifice upon 
the cross. 

In the correct translation of Titus 2:13, the translation 
given in the English revision, our Lord Jesus is spoken of 
as “our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.’’ In Romans 





whose goings forth have been from old, from everlasting” (Micha, 
5:12); “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. . . . Therefore, 
God, thy God, hath anointed thee’ (Psalms 45:6, 7); “I send my 
messenger and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, 
whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger 
of the covenant whom ye delight in” (Malaciah, 3:1). Henderson, 
in his commentary on this passage, points out that the Messiah is here 
called “the Lord” or “the sovereign’—a title nowhere given in this 
form (with the article) to any but Jehovah; that he is predicted as 
coming to the temple as its proprietor; and that he is identified with 
the angel of the covenant, elsewhere shown to be one with Jehovah 
himself. 


202 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


9:5, Paul tells us that “Christ is over all, God blessed for- 
ever.’ The Unitarians have made desperate efforts to 
overcome the force of these words, but the only fair trans- 
lation and interpretation of the words that Paul wrote in 
Greek are the translation and interpretation found in both 
our Authorized and Revised Versions. There can be no 
honest doubt to one who goes to the Bible to find out 
what it actually teaches, and not to read his own thought 
into it, that Jesus is spoken of by various names and titles 
that beyond a question imply Deity and that He is called 
God. In Hebrews 1:8 it is said in so many words, of the 
Son: 

“But unto the Son he saith, thy throne, O God, is forever 


and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy 
kingdom.” 


Here “the Son’ is called “God.” If we go no further it 
is evidently the clear and often repeated teaching of the 
Bible that Jesus Christ was really God. 


A DIVINE TRINITY 


To sum up, then, at this point, I will say that the Bible 
clearly teaches that God is a Trinity—three persons: God 
the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit—in one 
divine nature.* 


® Merely because we cannot understand the trinity is no proof that 
it is not true. Man himself is a trinity. We have body, mind and 
spirit, and yet the three make one personality. 

The Godhead is a tripersonal unity, and the light is a trinity. Being 
immaterial and homogeneous, and thus essentially one in its nature, 
the light includes a plurality of constituents, or in other words is 
essentially three in its constitution, its constituent principles being the 
actinic, the luminiferous, and the calorific, yet in glorious manifesta- 
tion the light is one, and is the created, constituted, and ordained 
emblem of the tripersonal God—of whom it is said that “God is light, 
and in Him is no darkness at all” (I John, 1:5). The actinic rays 
are in themselves invisible; only as the luminiferous manifest them, 
are they seen: only as the calorific accompany them, are they felt. 

Dr. A. H. Strong well says: “The doctrine of the Trinity is not 
self-contradictory. This it would be, only if it declared God to be 


203 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


I will not take the time to quote many passages that 
might be quoted showing this, but will refer to one or 
two that are typical, comprehensive and emphatic. It is 
written in First John 5:7: 

“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, 


the Word [Son] and the Holy Ghost; and these three are 
one.” 


While there is some criticism of this verse on textual 
grounds, nevertheless it states the matter concisely, and its 
statement is confirmed in many other places in the Bible. 
In connection with the Baptism of our Lord, for example, 
there was a physical manifestation of the entire deity, with 
the Son in the water beneath, the Holy Spirit, in the form 
of a Dove, descending upon Him, and the Voice of the 
Father, above, saying “This is My beloved Son, in whom 
I am well pleased”’ (Mat. 3 :13-17). 

Again, in Colossians 2:9 it is said of Christ: 


“In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” 


It is here declared that in the body of Jesus Christ 
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead, or deity. Now 
as before remarked, the Bible teaches that fullness of deity 
is manifested in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is there- 
fore asserted in this passage in Colossians that Father, 
Son, and Holy Spirit—the fullness of deity—dwelleth in 


three in the same numerical sense in which he is said to be one. 
This we do not assert. We assert simply that the same God who is 
one with respect to his essence is three with respect to the internal 
distinctions of that essence, or with respect to the modes of his being. 
The possibility of this cannot be denied except by assuming that the 
human mind is in all respects the measure of the divine. Neither 
God’s independence nor God’s blessedness can be maintained upon 
grounds of absolute unity. Anti-trinitarianism almost necessarily 
makes creation indispensable to God’s perfection, tends to a belief in 
the eternity of matter, and ultimately leads, as in Mohammedanism, 
and in modern Judaism and Unitarianism, to Pantheism. ‘Love is 
an impossible exercise to a solitary being.’ Without trinity we can- 
fe hold a living Unity in the Godhead.” (Systematic Theology, pp. 
—168.) 


204. 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


the body of Jesus Christ. So Jesus Himself said, “The 
Father dwelleth in Me’ (John 14:10); and again it is 
written in Second Corinthians 3:1-17: “The Spirit 
giveth light . . . now the Lord is that Spirit.” 

We have, then, a clear Biblical foundation for a logical 
and undeniable conclusion. It is this: Since the Father 
is in Jesus Christ, and since the Spirit is in Jesus Christ, 
and since Jesus Christ Himself is the Son, therefore, the 
fullness of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is in the body 
of Jesus Christ. That is to say all there is of God in 
His eternal state is in Jesus Christ, and there is no God 
apart from Him. These are perfectly clear statements in 
which there is no shadow of doubt about words. 

The Bible, therefore, in its general teaching,—culmi- 
nating in this specific teaching of a Holy Trinity,—affirms 
that while Jesus Christ during His earthly life, was a 
real man, He was and is also Very God. 

And the climax of it all is reached in that sublime pas- 
sage where the Bible not only declares that Jesus was 
equal with God before He came to this earth, but that He 
is to be finally recognized as God by the entire universe. 
In speaking of Jesus, therefore, it is written: 

“Who, being in the form of God thought it not robbery to 
be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and 
took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the 
likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He 
humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the 
death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted 
Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: 
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things 
in heaven, and things in earth and things under the earth; 


and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is 
Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2:5-11.) 


These are tremendous words, and they cannot possibly 
be applicable to a mere man. They clearly teach the full 
deity of Jesus Christ, and indicate for Him a future uni- 
versal sovereignty. 

205 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


Il. THe Specitric TEACHING OF THE BIBLE 


With this foundation, then, in the general teaching of 
the Bible upon this question, and in order that we may 
view the matter from another angle, I pass on now to my 
second argument, namely: that the Bible specifically 
teaches that Christ had and has all the attributes of God, 
and consequently that He was and is God. 


I. CHRIST'S WISDOM AS A PROOF OF HIS DEITY 


Take, for example, His wisdom. It is universally rec- 
ognized that perfect wisdom is a necessary attribute of 
the divine nature. It is self evident that the Creator and 
Preserver of this vast universe must be a supremely wise 
Being. 

Now in Jesus Christ, as pictured in the Bible, we find 
a wisdom higher than that of earth. Therefore, the con- 
clusion is inevitable that Christ’s wisdom must have been 
divine. We are told explicitly in John 16:30 that Jesus 
knew “all things,’ and in Colossians 2:3 we are told that 
in Him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowl- 
edge.” 

We are given very little about the boyhood of Jesus, 
but in the midst of the few references made to His youth, 
Luke is careful to say that as the child grew He was “filled 
with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon Him” 
(Luke 2:40). We find Christ when a boy of only twelve 
disputing with the learned doctors in the Jewish Temple. 
They were evidently so amazed at the extraordinary wis- 
dom of this mere boy that they were willing to devote days 
of their valuable time to answering His questions and 
asking Him questions. It is evident that these—the most 
learned and wisest men of the age—recognized in Him 
a uniqueness and a wisdom entirely out of the ordinary. 

Later in His life, men were sent to place Him under 
arrest, and when they came back without Him, they 

206 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


gave as a reason for their failure to bring Him this state- 
ment: “Never man spake as this man.” There was some- 
thing in His speech so absolutely unearthly and heavenly 
in its wisdom that soldiers found themselves powerless 
to lay their hands upon Him. 

Take, for example, His forms of expression. They 
are faultless. The greatest literary genius that the world 
has ever known cannot improve upon His parables. They 
are perfect, both as to their matter and their form. His 
speech was neither Oriental nor Western. It was uni- 
versal and authoritative. The record of it appeals to 
the mind and changes the heart of the Chinaman or In- 
dian in the same way that it does the American. And 
the manner in which He met His adversaries and con- 
founded them, again and again, gives proof of a wis- 
dom and an understanding higher than that of man. 

Again and again His astute foes endeavored to trap 
Him—learned lawyers and skillful priests and scribes— 
but each time He outwitted and refuted them with a sim- 
plicity, and yet a profoundness of wisdom, to which 
they could find no answer. On one occasion they tried 
to impale Him on one or the other horn of a dilemma. 
They asked Him the simple question: “Is it right to pay 
tribute to Caesar?” If He had replied that it was right, 
then that would have prejudiced the Jews against Him. 
If He had answered that it was not right, that would have 
left Him liable to the charge of treason under the Roman 
law. When the question was put to Him, therefore, with 
a wisdom that was nothing short of divine, He gave that 
immortal answer which has passed into the wisdom litera- 
ture of the world: “Render unto Caesar the things that 
are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”’ 

The principles He laid down without argument, but 
with the assumption of undisputed authority, so appeal 
to us as to be accepted as elemental truths. They are 
self evident, and forceful as axioms in mathematics. 

207 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


As, for example, when He said, “A good tree cannot 
bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring 
forth good fruit. Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall 
know them.” 

His sermon on the mount is recognized as embodying 
a wisdom beyond the present reach of men. It is so di- 
vine in its wisdom and beauty that many thoughtful 
minds have declared that its precepts and principles can 
only be put into full and active practice when Jesus Him- 
self has come back to guide and enforce them as a ruling 
King. 

May I call your attention to one other illustration? 
In a model prayer of only 65 words, He gives the very 
essence of every utterance possible to a man in the act 
of prayer. The germ of it all is there. The Fatherhood 
of God—‘“‘Our Father’; the transcendence of God as a 
living personality—‘“‘Which art in Heaven’; the unap- 
proachable holiness of God—‘Hallowed be thy name’; 
the sovereign rulership of God—“Thy kingdom come, thy 
will be done’; and then the needs and aspirations of man 
—“Give us this day our daily bread’; and a right rela- 
tionship between us and our fellow men—‘“Forgive us 
our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against 
us’; protection from evil—“lead us not into temptation 
but deliver us from the evil one’; and all of it climaxed 
with a reemphasis upon the eternal power and greatness 
of God—“for thine is the kingdom and the power and 
the glory forever and ever.” Yes, the very essence of 
all true prayer is there. We may expand and enlarge the 
parts of this prayer, but, at last, it will be found that 
it is all inclusive. 

I submit that it surpasses human wisdom and under- 
standing thus to comprehend all the possible aspirations 
and needs of the human heart for all time, and to con- 
dense it all into five printed lines! 

As we contemplate the wisdom that Christ manifested 

208 


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in His teaching and His conduct, do we not find our- 
selves unconsciously looking up to Him as to God Him- 
self? Perfect wisdom is an attribute of deity only, and 
this wisdom that was in Christ proves that He was more 
than even the greatest and best of men—that He was 
incarnate deity. 


CHRIST’S SINLESSNESS. 


Holiness is another attribute of God. The human 
mind intuitively recognizes that “the Judge of all the 
earth must do right.” Now in Christ, we find holiness 
in its perfection. He was more than merely a good man. 
He was a sinless man, and since sin is recognized as a 
universal characteristic of humanity, when we find One 
who was without sin, we know that He was more than 
aman. The absolutely holy nature of Jesus Christ proves 
Him divine, for only God is holy. 

The incident to which doubters sometimes refer in 
which Christ said to the rich young ruler: “Why callest 
thou me good? There is none good but God,” was not a 
disclaimer either of His deity or His righteousness. It 
was no more than a rebuke to a young man’s hastiness in 
reaching conclusions about strangers. This rich young 
ruler had just met Christ, and when he immediately ad- 
dressed Him as “good,” the Master’s reply to him, mani- 
festly was intended to correct a fault in his nature. His 
thought was: “Why do you call me good—you who know 
nothing about me? God is the only One whom all men 
know to be good, and you do not yet know that I am 
God.” And the fact that immediately after that in- 
cident with the rich young ruler Christ assumed the posi- 
tion of God, passing judgment upon the young man, even 
though he had loved Him, and declared to His followers 
that he was a lost soul, and the further fact that He 
then passed on and spoke of His resurrection from the 
dead—a divine miracle—proves in this very connection 

209 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


that He was God. In other places He explicitly announced 
Himself as a perfect model and called people to follow 
Him. Therefore, there is no force to the contention that 
this remark of Jesus’s to the rich young ruler was a dis- 
claimer either of sinlessness or of deity. 

Doubters say, that the fact that Jesus prayed proves 
that He understood that He was not equal with God. 
But this contention merely shows a lack of understand- 
ing of the true nature of prayer. The very essence of 
prayer is communion, and not mere petition; and the 
prayers of Jesus were always primarily characterized by 
this element. 

There is also, in this connection, a most significant 
fact, and that is that never in one of His prayers have we 
any record of a single confession of sin. Now, the very 
first impulse of the human heart in the act of prayer is 
toward confession. When we bow in the presence of the 
holy God, we are smitten as at no other time with the 
sense of our own sinfulness and unholiness, but here was 
One who prayed constantly and fervently, yet the con- 
fession of sin was never upon His lips. He addressed 
God always with that perfect assurance and confidence 
which was born of the consciousness of innocence, sin- 
lessness and oneness with God. 

So strong was this conviction within His heart that 
He dared even to challenge His deadliest enemies by 
saying: “Which one of you convicteth me of sin?” They 
could not convict Him! Even those who were not His 
friends were forced to concede His moral rectitude. 
Pilate, His judge, declared repeatedly, “I find no fault in 
Him.” Pilate’s heathen wife, also, warned in a dream, 
and with a woman’s deep intuition, advised her hus- 
band: “Have nothing to do with that just man.’ Even 
the iron hearted Roman centurion stationed at the cross 
exclaimed: “Certainly this was a righteous man.” And 
sceptics, worldlians and unbelievers in all the after 

210 


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ages have followed the example of Pilate and recognized 
the moral beauty of Jesus, even if they did not accept Him 
as God and Saviour. 

David Strauss called Christ “the highest model of re- 
ligion.”’ 

John Stuart Mill said that He was “the guide of 
humanity.” 

Leckey declared that he was “the highest pattern of 
virtue.” 

Martineau referred to Him as “the divine flower of 
humanity.” 

Robert Owen called Him “the irreproachable.” 

Benjamin Disraeli, the Jew, while Prime Minister of 
Great Britain, also extolled Christ’s moral supremacy. 
He said: 


“The pupil of Moses may ask Himself whether all the 
princes of the House of David have done so much for Jews 
as that Prince who was crucified. . . . Had it not been 
for Him the Jews would have been comparatively unknown, 
or known only as an Oriental Caste which had lost its coun- 
try. Has not He made their history the most famous history 
in the world? The wildest dreams of their Rabbis have been 
far exceeded. Has not Jesus conquered Europe and changed 
its name to Christendom? All countries that refuse the 
Cross wilt, and the time will come when the countless myriads 
of America and Australia will find music in the songs of 
Zion, and solace in the parables of Galilee.” 


What a touching, beautiful tribute to come from the 
heart of a Jew! 

And time fails us to speak of the raptures of song and 
the exquisite paeans of poetry which the sinlessness of 
Jesus of Nazareth have called forth. Take but one, that 
lovely verse of Sidney Lanier: 


“But thee, but thee, O sovereign seer of time, 
But thee, O poet’s Poet, wisdom’s tongue, 
But thee, O man’s best Man, O love’s best Love, 
O perfect life in perfect labour writ, 
211 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


O all men’s Comrade, Servant, King or Priest, 
What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse, 
What least defect or shadow of defect, 

What rumor tattled by an enemy, 

Of inference loose, what lack of grace 

Even in torture’s grasp, or sleep’s or death’s— 

O, what amiss may I forgive in Thee, 

Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?” 

There is nothing amiss that we can forgive. The Bible 
says that Christ “was in all points tempted like as we are, 
yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). There is no place in the 
record of His life where we can put our finger and say: 
“Here He did that which was wrong!” No spot of sin 
ever fell upon the stainless soul of Jesus of Nazareth. 
No thought of impurity ever found lodgment in the 
temple of His radiant mind. No impulse of selfishness 
ever enthralled His faultless heart. The pride of the 
mind, the lust of the flesh, and the vainglory of life were 
utterly subordinated and kept under in Him, by a holi- 
ness that was higher than any that the children of men 
have ever had. In the light of the universal sense of sin 
in every man, does not this sinlessness of Christ prove 
that He was more than human, that He was divine—even 
as Gabriel said “A Holy Thing’’? 


THE LOVE OF CHRIST AS PROOF OF HIS DEITY 


Closely akin to this, I will point out the love of Christ 
as a proof of His deity. The supreme attribute of God 
is love. God is not an arbitrary tyrant. God is not a 
heartless despot. God is not a mere king, ruling in ma- 
jesty and ruthless might. Our hearts respond to the 
glorious truth that God is our heavenly Father; and we 
know that the highest summary of the very essence of 
the divine Being is given when the Bible says “God is 
love.”’ 

And I ask you if it is not true that we find in Jesus 
Christ the manifestation of a love so pure and holy and 

212 


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perfect that it proves in itself that He was God. Paul 
says in speaking of it “herein is love’’—just as though 
real love had never been known until God’s love was 
manifested in Jesus Christ. There was a day when the 
little children came running to Him, but men even as 
high as the Apostles, because they were only human, 
sought to drive them away. But see Christ yonder as He 
takes the little children into His arms and presses them 
to His heart and pillows their curly heads in the hollow 
of His shoulder and says: 


“Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them 
not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” 


Human compassion at its best demands an antiseptic 
when disease is touched, and even the kindliest doctors 
put rubber gloves on their hands when they are in contact 
with contagion. But see Jesus again as He touches the 
leper to heal him of his loathsome disease. See Him 
again as He stood at the tomb of Lazarus and wept in 
divine sympathy with the heart-broken sisters of the dead. 
See Him again rebuking the men who, though equally 
guilty, would have stoned the fallen woman. See Jesus 
as with infinite tenderness and delicacy He reaches down 
His hand to her and lifts her up and sends her forth, 
with a new hope in her heart, and says to her with divine 
tenderness and authority: “Go, and sin no more.” 

See Him again as He stands and refuses to defend 
Himself before Pilate because He knows that He must 
fulfill His mission of salvation to a lost race. See Him 
suffering as His white flesh quivers beneath the lash. 
See Him staggering beneath the weight of His Cross, and 
at last nailed to its remorseless arms. Hear Him, even 
in the midst of mortal agony, providing for His widowed 
mother, and saying to Mary, “Woman, behold thy son,” 
and to John the Beloved, “Son, behold thy mother.” See 
Him again, when with a love greater than earth had ever 

213 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


known. before, He prayed to the Father and said, refer- 
ring even to those who were putting Him to such a death, 
“Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” 
No mere man could ever so pray. See Him again in the 
supreme anguish of that moment when the sin of a lost 
race fell upon His stainless soul, in the agony of vicarious 
suffering, when God, for a season, withdrew from Him, 
and He exclaimed, “My God, My God, why hast thou 
forsaken me?” See Him in those ways, and you must 
see Him exemplifying a love purer and sweeter and 
higher than any that our poor earth has ever known—a 
love that was divine, yea, the holy and perfect redemp- 
tion love of God Himself. See Him thus, and then you 
will understand what the Bible means when it says that 
“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten 
Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish 
but have everlasting life’ (John 3:16); and that “God 
was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.” 

In Christ there was a love higher than the love of man 
because Christ was willing to die for His enemies. The 
Bible says peradventure for a good man some would be 
even willing to die—“‘But God commendeth His love to- 
ward us in that while we were yet sinners (and enemies) 
Christ died for us’ (Romans 5:8). Here was a love 
beyond the love of men. It was a divine love that was in 
Christ. 


THE POWER OF CHRIST AS A PROOF OF HIS DEITY 


The deity of Jesus Christ is attested also by the power 
which He manifested. He performed wonders during 
His walk upon this earth, if the records of His life are 
to be believed at all, which proved that He possessed 
omnipotence, which is an attribute of God alone. 

In appealing, now, to the miracles which Christ 
wrought as a proof of His deity, I would say that unless 
we do accept and believe the miracles, then we have to 

214 


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reject the Bible entirely as the greatest tissue of lies which 
has ever deluded the children of men. 

Hume took the position that miracles are incredible 
and, therefore, that no amount of testimony can prove 
them. But that is mere scepticism and a priori dogmat- 
ism, which assumes that we know all the laws of nature 
and what an infinite God could or would do. 

The miracles recorded in the Bible cannot be dismissed 
by mere doubt or subjective scepticism. Since the Bible 
teaches that the universe is primarily a spiritual order and 
not a mere material machine, and that it is ruled by a 
living God, miracles are inevitable and to be expected. 
As a father, I do every day things that are miracles to my 
little boys, because they are utterly beyond their com- 
prehension and powers, so we must expect that our 
heavenly Father and our Divine Saviour would do things 
that to us are supernatural and beyond our present under- 
standing. While miracles are beyond our understanding, 
however, they are not beyond the understanding of God. 
The Bible says “with God all things are possible,” and 
this is true because He is an Almighty Being. The 
miracles are not violations of natural law, but are events 
which occur according to higher laws which are fully 
known to God though entirely unknown to us. 

And we must believe the miracles recorded in the Bible 
_ because while they are beyond our limited experience and 
are above our understanding, nevertheless they are at- 
tested by witnesses as competent, disinterested and trust- 
worthy as any which history knows. If we reject the 
Bible miracles, therefore, we can do so only on the ground 
that there are certain alleged occurrences which we will 
not believe even though the testimony to them may be 
overwhelming. In other words, we put our own sub- 
jective scepticism against any testimony that may be ad- 
duced, and we thereby assert that we will not believe 

215 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


anything outside of the limits of our own experience and 
understanding. 

Now this is not only a very narrow and egotistical 
position to take, but it is really absurd, because if ac- 
cepted it would prevent any more new truth ever coming 
into the world. 

We must, therefore, accept the Biblical miracles because 
of the testimony to them. 


LEGAL TESTIMONY 


Simon Greenleaf, author of ‘“The Law of Evidence,” 
one of the great standard authorities on evidence in the 
courts of the English-speaking world, wrote also another 
remarkable book entitled “The Testimony of the Evan- 
gelists Examined by the Rules of Evidence Demonstrated 
in Courts of Justice.” I have that book here. With his 
trained legal mind, and in the same judicial style in which 
his “Law of Evidence” was written, Greenleaf carefully 
reviews and weighs the Bible evidence, and considers 
the character of these Bible witnesses. Having done this 
with great care, he reaches the conclusion that, from a 
strictly legal and rational standpoint, the Bible narra- 
tives are proved, and the witnesses are absolutely trust- 
worthy. Listen then to his own statement giving these 
conclusions. He says (pages 30, 31) in speaking of the 
Bible writers: 


“Their writings show them to have been men of vigorous 
understanding. If then, their testimony was not true, there 
was no possible motive for this fabrication. It would also 
have been irreconcilable with the fact that they were good 
men. But it is impossible to read their writings and not 
feel that we are conversing with men eminently holy, and of 
tender conscience, with men acting under an abiding sense 
of the presence and omniscience of God, and of their ac- 
countability to him, living in his fear and walking in his ways. 
Now, though in a single instance a good man may fall, when 
under strong temptations, yet he is not found persisting for 

216 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


years, in deliberate falsehood, asserted with the most solemn 
appeals to God, without the slightest temptation or motive, 
and against all opposing interests which reign in the human 
breast. If, on the contrary, they are supposed to have been 
bad men, it is incredible that such men should have chosen 
this form of imposture; enjoining, as it does unfeigned re- 
pentance, the utter forsaking and abhorrence of all falsehood 
and of every other sin, the practice of daily self-denial, self- 
abasement and self-sacrifice, the crucifixion of the flesh with 
all its earthly appetites and desires, indifference to the honors, 
and hearty contempt of the vanities of the world; and incul- 
cating perfect purity of heart and life and intercourse of the 
soul with heaven. It is incredible that bad men should invent 
falsehoods to promote the religion of the God of truth. The 
supposition is suicidal. If they did believe in a future state 
of retribution, a heaven and a hell hereafter, they took the 
most certain course—of false witness—to secure the latter 
for their portion. And if, still being bad men, they did not 
believe in future punishment, how came they to invent false- 
hoods, the direct and certain tendency of which was to de- 
stroy all their prospects of worldly honor and happiness, and 
to insure their misery in this life? From these absurdities 
there is no escape, but in the perfect conviction and admission 
that they were good men, testifying to that which they had 
carefully observed and considered, and well knew to be 
jabber 


What possible escape, my friends, short of mere stub- 
born doubt and superficial scepticism, is there from such 
logic? This great legal authority has here given us a 
judicial decision on the reliability of these records and 
the trustworthiness of these witnesses who tell us of the 
miracles that Christ performed. I submit, therefore, that 
unless some contrary and more reliable documents and 
more trustworthy witnesses can be introduced to over- 
throw them, then the miracles, which it is here declared 
Christ performed, are established as facts. And we must 
inevitably conclude, therefore, since such miracles are 
above the powers of man, that Christ was more than a 
mere man. 

His miracles went beyond those performed even by 

217 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


men to whom God had given miracle working power. 
They swept the whole gamut of heavenly power, and were 
specially intended to manifest Christ’s glory and to prove 


his deity. In connection with his first miracle it is writ- — 
ten: “This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of ~ 
Galilee, and manifested forth his Glory; and His disciples — 


believed on Him” (John 2:11). And later in appealing 
to his enemies Jesus called upon them to “Believe me 
for the work’s sake.”’ Because, therefore, of the absolute 
and all inclusive power manifested in these miracles, and 
because of their object, which was to produce faith in 
His deity, we must believe that he was Incarnate God. 


WHAT POWER WAS IT? 
The teaching of the Modernists, therefore, that Jesus 


was a good man and a great prophet and a high example ~ 


or model, but that he did not have the rags of God, 
cannot be true. Jesus Himself said: 
“All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth” 
(Matt. 28:18) ; and in Hebrews 1:3, Christ is referred to 
s “upholding all things by the word of His power.” 
The Modernists, therefore, flatly contradict the Bible, 


including Christ’s own explicit statements, when they say © 


that He did not have the power of God. 

If it was not the power of God that was in Jesus of 
Nazareth, then I ask what power was it that converted 
the billows of Galilee into a marble pavement for His 
majestic foot-steps? What power was it by which He 
clothed Himself in the glories of uncreated light on the 
Mount of Transfiguration? What power was it by which 
he spoke into life the corrupting tenant of Lazarus’ 


sepulcher; by which He reinstated the deposed and dis- — 


tracted reason upon the throne of the demoniac’s mind}; 

by which He opened the blind eyes and unstopped the 

deaf ears and caused the “lame man to leap as a hart 

and the tongue of the dumb to sing?’ Yea, what power 
218 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


was it that shattered the iron bands of death itself, and on 
the resurrection morning brought Christ forth as victor 
over death and the grave? The entire Christian world 
has just celebrated once more in its beautiful Easter 
ceremonies, the actual resurrection of Jesus Christ from 
the grave. 

In speaking of His death and His resurrection, Christ 
said: 

“T lay down my life that I might take it again. No man 
taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself, I have power 
to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” (John 
ACTER gl 

The power within the dead to overcome death is surely 
the supreme power. Man does not have it. Only God 
has it. Therefore, the supreme miracle of the resurrec- 
tion of Christ is a proof that He had divine power and 
that He was more than mere man, that He was incarnate 
deity. 

I wish at this point to ask my opponent two pertinent 
questions: 

First, if you do not believe in these miracles as recorded 
in the Bible, then must you not say that these seemingly 
sensible and good people who wrote the Bible were really 
either self-deluded fanatics or else they were liars and 
deceivers? 

Second, if you do believe in the miracles, then do they 
not prove that Jesus Christ had divine and superhuman 
powers, and, therefore, that He was more than man, that 
He was incarnate God? 


III. Curist’s CLAIM FOR HIMSELF. 


I come, now, to the climax of the Bible’s teachings 
about Jesus Christ, namely, what He Himself had to say 
about the question of His deity. Some who are given 
to questioning the teachings of the Bible in some of its 
parts nevertheless say that Jesus taught the truth, and, 

219 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


therefore, that He can certainly be believed and followed. 
In other words, His teachings are recognized as the very 
heart of the Bible. If they are rejected, then the entire 
Bible must simply be thrown away. 

Now when we come to the question of Christ’s claims 
for His teaching about Himself, we find that doubters 
and critics are left in a dilemma. 

All reputable critics now admit two things concerning 
Jesus of Nazareth. First, as I have already proved, that 
He was a Wise man, and secondly, as I also showed, 
that He was a good man. But if this much is admitted, 
then His deity must also be admitted, for He claimed to 
be divine. Now if He was a wise man, He would not 
have been so foolish as to make such an absurd and 
egotistical claim unless He was divine; and if, on the 
other hand, He was a good man, He would not have 
sought to mislead and delude His fellows by a claim so 
monstrous and blasphemous, unless it was true. 


DID JESUS CLAIM TO BE DIVINE? 


The issue at this point turns, therefore, upon the 
question of whether Jesus did claim deity; and that He 
did must be conceded by any impartial mind who will 
study the record. 

Notice, for one thing, that this claim was involved in 
the beautiful similes which he applied to Himself. He 
said, “I am the light of the world,’ “I am the way,” 
“T am the truth,’ “I am the vine,’ “Ask in my name 
and your prayers shall be granted,” “Eat my body, drink 
my blood,” “I am the resurrection.” And these expres- 
sions were used not with the egotistical vanity of even 
the highest of men, which would have called forth only 
ridicule and scorn from those who heard them; but they 
were spoken with such unruffled calmness, such sublime 
selfpossession, and such poise of authority that those 
who heard them fell down and worshipped Him. 

220 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


His claim to deity is involved also in His teaching 
concerning His relationship to the most vital interests of 
life. For example, He presumed to forgive sins, and 
only God can claim that power. It is written here: 
“That ye may know that the Son of man hath power on 
earth to forgive sins, He saith to the sick of the palsy, 
I say unto thee ‘Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy 
way into thine house.’”’ (Mark 2.) 

He proclaimed Himself as a lawgiver. He said, “It 
hath been said by them of old time, thou shalt do no 
fiuraer, etc, etc.;, but £ say unto -you,’ etc... He 
claimed the right to promulgate a higher moral law even 
than that which had come from the divine hands at 
Sinai; and to show His full supremacy, He said, “The 
Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” 

He had a great deal to say in regard to the Kingdom 
of God, and He announced Himself as the Ruler in that 
Kingdom. In Luke 19:12 and in other places He used 
such expressions as this: “That ye may eat and drink 
in my Kingdom.” 

Jesus declared that He would be the Judge of all man- 
kind, and emphasized the fact of the Divine character of 
the office. In John’s :22, 23, He said: 


“For neither doth the Father judge any man, but He hath 
given all judgment unto the Son, that all men may honor the 
Son, even as they honor the Father.” 


He claimed the right to direct events as an overruling 
Providence. In Matthew 24 and 25, we have the won- 
derful picture which He drew of the time when He shall 
return, attended by His holy angels, to direct the closing 
events in the history of this present age, and to judge all 
nations in righteousness. 

The future raising of the dead is claimed by Him in 


John 6:39, 44: 
221 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


“And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that 
of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing, but 
should raise it up at the last day. No man can come to me, 
except the Father which hath sent me draw Him: And I will 
raise Him up at the last day. 


The bestowal of eternal life is claimed by Him. In John 
10:28, He says: 


“And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never 
perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” 


And in John 17:1, 2, He says: 


“Father, the Hour is Come; glorify thy Son, that the Son 
may Glorify thee; even as Thou gavest him authority over 
all flesh that to all whom thou hast given Him, He would 
give eternal life.” 


He claimed even to have full control of natural forces. 
He said to the storm-tossed waves, “Be still’? and to the 
howling tempest, ‘““Be muzzled,’ and they obeyed His 
voice. In each of these great and important relation- 
ships He put Himself in the place of God. 

Indeed, He accepted worship, as illustrated in such pas- 
sages as this: 

“Thomas answered and said unto Him: ‘My Lord and My 
sO et 

“Jesus saith unto Him, Thomas because thou hast seen 


me, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen 
and yet have believed.” (John 20:28.) 


Here He accepted Thomas’ worship. 

In connection with the establishment of the Lord’s 
Supper Jesus Himself said, “This do in remembrance of 
Me.” And Paul said, “As often as ye eat this bread and 
drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he comes” 
(1 Cor. 11:26). Our worship, therefore, in connection 
with the holy rite of the Christian church—the Lord’s 
Supper—is an act of worship instituted by Christ Him- 
self. 

222 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


When the devil tempted Him on the Mount, He re- 
plied, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (Luke 
4:12). 

When He asked His disciples, “Whom say ye that I 
am?” Simon Peter answered “Thou are the Christ, the 
Son of the living God.” And instead of rebuking him, 
greatly rejoiced by this flash of insight into His true 
character, Christ exclaimed, “Blessed art thou, Simon 
Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, 
but my Father, which is in Heaven.” Peter had had a 
direct revelation from the Heavenly land concerning 
Christ’s true divine nature, and so He said: “I say unto 
thee that thou art Peter and upon this rock (the rock of 
faith in His divinity) I will build my church; and the 
gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 13: 
13-18). 


SPECIFIC CLAIMS 


In even more striking and specific ways, and again 
and again, Jesus deliberately claimed that He was God. 
In His question to the Pharisees “What think ye of 
Christ? Whose Son is He?” He was arguing for His 
own full deity, for He pointed out to them that while 
Christ was of the seed of David, according to the flesh, 
nevertheless David with prophetic prevision called Him 
“Lord.” 

In the midst of a beautiful prayer, Christ claimed that 
He had sat on the throne of the universe with God the 
Father before the world was. He said, “And now, O 
Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the 
glory which I had with thee before the world was.”’ (John 
17:5). And referring again to this matter, He said, “I 
am from above.’ (John 8:23). And once more, He 
said, “What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend 
up where He was before?” (John 6:62). 

Furthermore, He put Himself on an absolute equality 

223 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


with the other members of the Godhead, in giving the 
great commission, when He said: “Go ye, therefore, and 
teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.”’ (Matt. 
28:19). And speaking to John, in Revelation, He said 
explicitly: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and 
the ending, saith the Lord, which is and which was and 
which is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev. 1:8.) 

In the case of the man who had been blind from his — 
birth, and whose eyes Jesus opened, after this man had © 
been put out of the synagogue by the hostile Jews, because © 
he would not give false testimony against Jesus, it is 
recorded here: 

“Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He — 

had found him, He said unto him, Dost thou believe on the 
Son of God? He answered and said, Who is He, Lord, that 
I might believe on Him? and Jesus said unto him, “Thou hast 
both seen Him and it is He that talketh with thee.’ And he 
said, ‘Lord, I believe’ and he worshipped Him.” (John 
9 35-38.) 
It is here stated that Jesus specifically declared that He 
was the Son of God, and that He meant this 1m the sense 
of full deity is proved absolutely by the fact that He ac- 
cepted this man’s worship! I challenge my opponent to 
account for this. 

Again, when his enemies declared that he had a devil, 
Jesus answered them by remarking: 

“Tf a man keep my sayings he shall never see death.” 

His enemies retorted: “Art thou greater than our father 
Abraham, which is dead? . . . Whom maketh thou thy- 
self?” Jesus answered: 


“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw 
it and was glad.” 


Then His enemies said unto Him, 


“Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen 
Abraham ?” 


Then it is written: 
224 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


“Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:48-59). 


Then it is recorded they took up stones to stone Him, but 
that Jesus hid Himself and went out of the Temple, thus 
escaping death at their hands. 

They thus sought to stone Him to death because in the 
Expression, “I AM” He not only claimed eternity of ex- 
istence, but He used the holy name which God gave to 
Himself when He spoke to Moses at the burning bush. 
In that incident of the burning bush Moses asked God to 
tell Him His name so that he could give answer when the 
Jews, to whom he was being sent as deliverer, should de- 
mand of him who commanded him to do this work and 
who sent Him, and God answered Moses from the burning 
bush and told him to say, “I AM hath sent thee.” “I AM 
that I AM”’ is the great all-comprehending name of the 
eternal God, given by God Himself, and when the Jews 
heard Jesus claiming that name for Himself they regarded 
it as blasphemy and sought to stone Him to death. The 
literal rendering here is “Jesus said to them, Amen, 
Amen, I say to you, before Abraham was I Am.” The 
“Amen, Amen” is practically an oath. Jesus, therefore, 
took oath before them that He was God—the eternal 
“I AM.” They immediately understood what He meant 
and therefore sought to stone Him to death. (John 
8 :48-59). 

These Jewish enemies would not forget the claim that 
Jesus made for Himself, nor would they forget their 
charge of blasphemy against Him. 

Therefore, in the tenth chapter of John’s gospel it is 
recorded that some time later Jesus was walking in the 
Temple in Solomon’s porch, and the Jews once more 
crowded around Him and said unto Him specifically, 


“How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the 
Christ, tell us plainly.” 
225 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


In reply to that Jesus answered them with that tre- 
mendous statement : 


“T and My Father are one.” (John 10:30.) 


Then it is written again that “the Jews took up stones 
again to stone Him.” But this time Jesus expostulated 
with them. He said: 


“Many good works have I showed you from my Father; 
for which of these works do you stone me?” 


They answered, “For a good work we stone thee not, but 
for blasphemy and because that thou being a man maketh 
thyself God.” (John 10:33.) Thus His enemies clearly 
understood His distinct and unmistakable claim to deity, 
and they sought to put Him to death for that claim, which 
they regarded as blasphemy. After they had arrested 
Jesus and haled Him before Pilate, they exclaimed to the 
governor: “By our law He ought to die, because He 
made Himself the Son of God.” (John 19:7.) 

There is a yet more solemn affirmation of His own 
deity, which was made by Jesus on the very night before 
He died. In the 26th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel it is 
recorded that He was brought before the high priest and 
put under oath and commanded to say once more if He 
claimed to be God. Caiaphas, the high priest, said to 
Him, “I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us 
whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus an- 
swered with the most positive and solemn form of the 
Jewish affirmation: “Thou hast said it.” Whereupon, 
it is written here, “The high priest rent his garments, 
saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need 
have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard His 
blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said, 
He is guilty of death.” (Matt. 26 :63-68. ) 

It was for the answer that He made there, to the high 
priest, that they condemned Jesus and put Him to death. 
“Blasphemy” was the word used against Him in His 

226 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


death warrant, because He had claimed to be the Son of 
God. Pilate would not write the inscription for Him on 
the cross the way the Jews wanted it. They wanted as the 
death warrant, “He called Himself God’s equal.” And 
the Lord admitted the impeachment. He would not re- 
tract, because he could not and be truthful. He stretched 
out His hands on the arms of the cross, and through 
those quivering palms they drove the cruel nails, and 
lifted Him up and crucified Him. The last testimony 
to His deity was the outpouring of His blood, and as 
that blood ran over the cross and down the slope of Cal- 
vary, even the hard hearted Roman centurian cried out: 


“Verily, this was the Son of God.” 


Undeniably, Christ did believe and did declare that He 
was the Son of God, and if this claim was not true, then 
He was the greatest fraud and humbug who ever walked 
the earth. Unless He was fully God, as He claimed to be, 
then He was either a fool or a knave. We know that the 
author of the sermon on the mount was not a fool, and 
that the unselfish Christ of Calvary was not a knave. 

I wish to ask my opponent which horn of the dilemma 
he will take. I wish to ask him this question: 


If you admit that Jesus Christ was both a wise and good 
man, then must you not also admit that He was what He 
claimed to be—the divine Son of God—incarnate deity? 


IV. Curist’s AFTER INFLUENCE 


My final argument is that Christ’s after influence proves 
that He is divine. I first showed from both the Old and 
New Testaments the general Bible teaching that Christ 
was God—the second person in a divine Trinity; I next 
showed that He had the great outstanding attributes of 
God, namely, divine wisdom, holiness, love and power, 

227 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


and, therefore, that He was and is God. I then quoted 
the clear and overwhelming claims and teachings of Christ 
Himself that He was the Son of God in a unique sense. I 


4 


; 


pointed out that to overcome these claims of Christ, 


sceptics and critics have to impale themselves on one or 


other horn of a dilemma—they have to say either that — 
Christ was not a good man or else that He was not a wise - 
man, unless He spoke the truth when He said that He | 


was divine. 

I now submit, in closing, that His after life has con- 
firmed His claims to deity, and that His influence and 
transforming power for the past two thousand years 
prove that He is still alive—a divine personality. The 
effects that Christ is still bringing to pass in the world, 
especially His soul changing, life giving, regenerating 
power—are the effects of one personality influencing an- 
other, which prove that Jesus Christ is at present a di- 
vine living Personality at work in the world. The re- 
generation of such men as Saul of Tarsus, Augustine, 
Moody, Jerry McCauley, and just recently the brilliant 
literary genius Pappini, proves that Jesus Christ has lived 
and now lives as a real, divine miracle working Being. 

And, my friends, it is a most significant fact that those 
branches of the Christian church which most sincerely 
believe in the deity of Jesus Christ are the ones which 
grow most rapidly, and seemingly do the most good in 
the world. I pass by the great Roman and Greek 
churches, with their teeming millions of faithful believ- 
ers in the divine Son of God, and with their good works 
the world over, and point out certain significant facts 
among Protestant Christians. 

To avoid any possible semblance even of personalities, 
I wish, rather than giving direct statements of my own, 
to quote some words from Dr. Charles R. Brown, Dean 
of the School of Religion of Yale University. Dr. 
Brown is recognized not only as a great scholar, but as a 

228 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


pre-eminently fair and just man; and the fact that he 
is a Congregationalist,—the denomination out of which 
the Unitarians originally largely came—in this country— 
makes his words all the more weighty and convincing. 
In his little book on “Who is Jesus Christ?’ Dr. Brown 
says: 


“T am a Congregationalist myself. A little over a hundred 
years ago we had a split in our denomination. There were 
those who held the lower view of Christ’s person [that is 
that he was not incarnate deity]. They insisted upon that 
view and they brought about a division of the Congregational 
Church. We have no strongly centralized authority in our 
body, and this radical difference in belief divided the denomi- 
nation almost equally. These men who held the lower view 
of the person of Christ withdrew, taking with them a large 
amount of property and a large number who belonged to the 
Congregational Church. That was a little over a hundred 
years ago. At that time the Unitarian leaders were saying 
that within twenty-five years all the Christians in the country 
would come over to their side. They now number something 
like 80,000 or 90,000, while the other branch of the Congre- 
gational Church holding the other view of Christ’s person 
[that is that He is incarnate deity] numbers 800,000. And 
we are a very small denomination as compared with the 
Methodists with their 7,000,000, or the Baptists who have as 
many more, or the Presbyterians with their three or four 
millions, or the Lutherans with several millions or the Epis- 
copalians with a million more. Somehow these branches of 
the Christian Church which have held strongly and steadily 
to the higher view of Christ have had the wind and tide with 
them. That branch of the Christian church which has held 
the lower view has not been able to show in its gospel that 
regenerating power which will take hold of a bad man and 
make him good. Show me among them a single work like 
that being done by the Jerry McAuley Mission in New York, 
the McCall Mission in Paris, the Pacific Garden Mission in 
Chicago, or the work of our own Bill Ellis in the Yale 
Mission in New Haven. Can you name a single place of that 
kind where they are making saints of men, who were wrecked 
by their sins through the preaching of this lower idea of 

229 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


Christ’s person? If you want to get the spirit of evil out of © 
a man and the spirit of God into him, it seems that the higher — 
view of Christ’s person is needed to do the business. : 
When we observe that in seventeen centuries of Christian — 
activity somehow the larger measure of success comes with 

the higher view; it surely must mean something.” 


Dr. Brown is right. It does mean something. It means 
that Jesus Christ is alive now and is still at work in the 
world through His Holy Spirit. It means that He is still 
performing miracles among men where they will believe 
on Him as God. He will convert and transform the lives 
of all who will accept Him as Savior and live in obedience 
to His holy will. 

In the beautiful city of Baltimore, at the entrance of 
the great Johns Hopkins Hospital, there stands an ex- 
quisite white marble statue of Christ. It is in the hallway 
just inside the entrance door. Many times during my 
pastorate in that city, in going to visit the sick in the hos- 
pital, I stood and looked upon the statue, and never once 
did I see it, that my heart was not deeply stirred. It is 
a majestic and yet most compassionate figure. The arms 
are outstretched, the nail wounds are seen in the hands, 
and the genius of the sculptor has put upon the face an 
expression of benignant longing, and yearning compas- 
sion. Inscribed upon the base of the statue are those 
words that fell from His own gracious lips, “Come unto 
Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for 
I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto 
your souls.” It is an appropriate monument for the en- 
trance to a hospital, and many a troubled spirit and pain- 
racked body has been blessed in looking upon it. But 
it is said that once there came a cynic and a doubter, and 
he looked long and attentively at the figure. He viewed 
it from right and left, and then walked once more in 

230 


FOR THE NEGATIVE 


front, but turned away at last with cynicism still written 
upon his face. But there was standing also near a little 
girl, and with childish eagerness and curiosity she watched 
his face, and then, with a girl’s deep intuition of spiritual 
things, when she saw him turn away without having read 
the deep message of that beautiful figure, she ran up to 
him and said: “Oh, sir, you cannot see Him that way. 
To see Him you must come up very close, and fall on 
your knees, and look up!” 

That is what we all need to do today. We need to 
turn from the self-sufficiency and the intellectual pride 
which looks at Jesus Christ in a condescending way. We 
all need to come very close to him in Faith, to fall upon 
our knees in humility, and to look up with unfeigned 
gratitude to Him, who loved us and gave Himself for us! 


231 





I] 


REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


Dr. Straton: I will take up first the rebuttal of my 
opponent’s opening speech, and then pass on to some good- 
natured remarks about the Unitarians, and then about 
some other things that he brought in in his rebuttal. 

He made the point in the beginning that Jesus was 
deified by the after-thought of the people. My friends, 
when that argument is analyzed, it comes down to this 
that within less than two generations those early Chris- 
tians had turned into idolaters. One historian, in speak- 
ing of the degeneration of pagan Rome, says that those 
pagans finally reached what he calls the “incredible base- 
ness of deifying the Emperor’’; and we are asked to be- 
lieve that within a few short years after Jesus’ death 
those early Christians had turned into idolaters and were 
guilty of the “incredible baseness of deifying’ a man. 
A little common sense is often better than a mass of crit- 
ical speculation and labored learning, and such a view of 
the development of early Christianity as this modernism 
offers is simply impossible on the face of it. 

The modernists usually point to John’s Gospel in their effort to 
bolster up this idea. They argue that the early Christians allowed 
their imaginations to come into play and, through that, that the process 
of the deification of the Lord went forward, was completed, and 
finally expressed itself explicitly in John’s Gospel. Now Jesus was 
put to death about the year 33. The Fourth Gospel was written 
as many of the most radical critics even, admit, between the years 
95 and 100. According to this idea, therefore, in 60 years Christian- 


ity had become idolatry. It started as the purest and loftiest religion 
ever preached, and yet in that short time it had become radically 


233 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


vitiated. The heroic efforts of “the noblest of prophets” had resulted 
in swift decay, and Christianity had become a corrupt religion setting 
forth an enormous lie, namely, the Deity of Jesus Christ. Now the 
worship of man is idolatry. Therefore, according to this idea Chris- 
tianity had degenerated into a system of idolatry within two genera- 
tions after the death of Christ. 


My opponent made the point that Jesus was only a 
man because he was tempted. But he was the God-man, 
and, therefore, in his humanity, he could be tempted. 

Of course, the argument from John’s Gospel means but 
little at last, as Matthew, Mark, Luke and the Epistles 
are all full of the doctrine of the deity of Jesus. 


ADVANTAGES OF CHRIST’S DEITY 


It is not true, as my opponent argued again and again, 
that to accept Jesus as divine removes Him from us. No! 
It makes Him nearer and dearer than ever. When we 
hear the God-Man say: “TI will no longer call you serv- 
ants, but I will call you friends,” our hearts thrill with 
the wonder and glory of it. Jesus as divine is a per- 
sonal present friend to the believer every day and hour. 

So far from it being a disadvantage, the Deity of 
Christ is the greatest possible advantage. It does not 
take the man Jesus Christ from us, and it does bring God 
down to us. The human heart has ever longed to know 
God. When Philip said: “Show us the Father and it 
sufficeth us,’ he expressed a universal longing of man’s 
heart to know God. And in the face of Jesus Christ, 
we see and know God. He is the express image of the 
Father’s glory, and when we look upon Him in His 
sympathy and His love and His power, we can say, “God 
is like Jesus.” We have, therefore, in the God-Man all 
the advantages of human fellowship and inspiration, 
plus the immeasurable advantages also of God brought 
near to us. 

My opponent endeavored to draw some fine distine- 
tions in defining the difference between “deity” and 

234 


REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


“divinity,” but, as I remarked in my opening speech, I 
will use the word divine in the popular and commonly 
understood sense that it is thought to carry with it. Also, 
I will not be drawn into a fog-bank of fine definitions 
and metaphysical speculations. 

My opponent also split some hairs over the finite and 
the infinite. We may not be able to understand the re- 
lationship between the finite and the infinite, but when 
we see the glories of Jesus Christ, we can accept the 
blessings which come from such a combination of the 
two, even though we do not understand it. 

My opponent had a good deal to say also on reason 
versus faith. But this is a purely imaginary conflict. 
This debate is on a religious question; therefore, it in- 
volves faith because faith is recognized as the funda- 
mental element in real religion. The Bible says, “with- 
out faith it is impossible to please God.” We need to 
remember that man has a heart as well as a head, and 
scripture declares truly: “Out of the heart are the issues 
of life.’ Reason goes just as far as it can, and is a 
good servant as far as it goes, but when Reason has 
reached the utmost limit of her journey then Faith 
spreads her white wings and bears us on to the shining 
goal of spiritual truth! 


MISINTERPRETED SCRIPTURES 


My opponent quoted a number of Scripture passages 
alleging that they were evidence proving that Jesus was 
not God. He quoted Matthew 24:36 where Jesus, in 
speaking of His second coming, said: “But of that day 
and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, 
but my Father only.’”’ This does not prove that Jesus 
was filled with ignorance like other men. The simple 
answer to that argument, and all other arguments which 
my opponent founded upon different Scripture verses that 

235 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


seem to show a limitation in Jesus, is that there was a 
self limitation in Him. When the divine took on human- 
ity, there was of necessity a certain temporary subjection 
on the part of the divine to the conditions of the human, 
It is expressly stated in the Bible that when Jesus became 
man He “emptied Himself” of certain things in connec- 
tion with the form of God. It is freely admitted, there- 
fore, that the divine nature submitted to certain self 
limitations and in a sense was humbled during our Sav- 
ior’s earthly life. Therefore, these passages which set 
forth Christ’s human weakness, and limitations as to 
some matters, are entirely consistent with the fact of His 
eternal deity. They apply to His earthly state of humil- 
iation rather than to His original and present glory. 

The Bible also makes plain that there is an order of 
office and operation in the Godhead, which, while it is 
consistent with essential oneness and equality, neverthe- 
less permits the Father to be spoken of as first, the Son 
as second, and the Holy Spirit as third. In the light of 
this obvious Bible truth, such passages as first Corinth- 
ians 15:28, therefore, need to be interpreted consistently 
with other passages such as John 17:5, etc. 

But, in His state of humiliation, Christ was the essen- 
tial truth, and any limitations, therefore, in connection 
with His human nature never led to error or false teach- 
ing. This understanding of the plain facts removes all 
difficulty from such statements from Jesus as “My Father 
is greater than I,” and other such passages as my oppo- 
nent quoted, like that of the fig tree, etc. 

My opponent quoted John 1:18 that “no man hath 
seen God at any time.” It is true that men have never 
seen the divine essence, or the entire triune personality 
of God, but they have seen the manifestations of God. 
In the old dispensation, God manifested Himself in an- 
gelic forms many times, and in Jesus Christ God was 
manifested in the Flesh so that He could say “He that 
hath seen me hath seen the Father.” 

236 


" seh tC 


REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


As to my opponent’s quotation of John 14:12. “He 
that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do 
also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I 
go unto my Father,” it is sufficient to say that these 
greater works were to be done not in human strength but 
through the guidance of the Holy Spirit whom Jesus 
promised to send into the world after He went to the 
Father. As to Jesus’s statement that He ascended to the 
Father, certainly the resurrected, glorified God-Man could 
ascend to the throne of God, which He did, and now 
rules there! 

My opponent quoted Luke 2:52 as an argument against 
the deity of Christ because it declares the boy Jesus 
‘Increased in wisdom and stature.’ Well, what else 
could He do? Since the divine became incarnate in hu- 
man flesh, how else could the boy Jesus become the man 
Jesus except through growth? 

He quoted Acts 2:22 “A man approved of God.” Cer- 
tainly He was that. The God-Man was approved on His 
manward as well as His divine side by God the Father. 

He quoted first Corinthians 8:6 “To us there is but 
one God, the Father,” etc. The real contrast, however, 
which Paul makes here is not between God the Father and 
the Lord Jesus Christ, but between the one God and the 
many gods of the idolaters, about whom and their meat 
eating, Paul was speaking. So far as any contrast be- 
tween God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ is con- 
cerned, it is merely a contrast between the Father as the 
ultimate source of all being and the Son as the immediate 
agent. Paul’s acceptance of the full deity of Jesus, as 
expressed again and again elsewhere, makes the thought 
entirely untenable, therefore, that in this verse he is deny- 
ing the very thing which elsewhere he explicitly accepts. 
After his meeting with the divine Christ on the road to 
Damascus, Paul could only refer to Him as “The Lord 
of Glory.” 

237 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


THE RICH YOUNG RULER AGAIN 


Though I anticipated my opponent in my first speech, 
and gave an exposition of the passage where Jesus asked 
the rich young ruler: “Why calleth thou me good?” my 
opponent tried further to play upon that passage. To 
show just what an extreme twisting and straining of 
Scripture it is to try to make that passage a disclaimer 
on the part of Jesus either of His sinlessness or His 
deity, let me quote to you the actual words which Jesus 
employed just after the young man had gone away. 
Jesus not only clearly asserted His divine authority by 
teaching the disciples in that connection that, because 
of the young man’s lack of faith and his failure to fol- 
low Him, he was a lost soul, but He began immediately 
talking about His eternal and divine glory. He said: 

“Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, 
in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the 
throne of glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging 
the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Matt. 19:28.) 


He not only asserts, right in connection with this 
incident of the rich young ruler, His own righteousness 
as the Judge of all the earth and His own divine glory, 
but He tells His human followers that they are to be 
exalted to positions of power and rulership under Him. 
Scripture must be interpreted in the light of Scripture, 
and when this entire incident is taken, instead of a garbled 
part of it, there is absolutely no difficulty with it. To off- 
set my opponent’s twisted, incomplete, and one-sided ex- 
position of this passage, let me again point out that Jesus 
undoubtedly set himself up as a perfect model, and chal- 
lenged even his foes by asking “which one of you con- 
victeth Me of sin?’ I quoted a dozen passages showing 
his absolute sinlessness, and my opponent did not even 
refer to them at all. Why? 

238 


REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


So, also, of my opponent’s quotation of the state- 
ment that Jesus could do “no mighty works,” etc. The 
fact was not a proof of a lack of ability on His part but 
merely of a lack of faith on the part of the self-suffi- 
cient and unbelieving people. Faith is the condition which 
God the Father and Christ the Son have both laid down 
as prerequisite to success in spiritual works. It is a con- 
dition chosen in divine sovereign wisdom, and Christ 
could not do mighty works under those wrong conditions 
because He would not. He would not violate His own 
spiritual law of faith. 


THE TROUBLE OVER THE TRINITY 


My opponent several times questioned the doctrine 
of the Trinity. I would point out, however, that neither 
in his first speech nor in the rebuttal did he even touch 
the tremendous array of Scripture truth which I presented 
in that connection. It is not true, as my opponent as- 
serted, that I did not give a single verse setting forth the 
doctrine of the trinity and that I did not give chapter and 
verse for my other citations. I gave enough quotations 
—and if time permitted could have given scores of others 
—showing that the truth of the trinity lies like a bedrock 
beneath the entire scripture. My opponent not only did 
not shake that truth—he did not even scratch the surface 
of it. 

There is no force, either, to the argument that be- 
cause in heathen religions there was an effort to find 
God, and even some gropings after the idea of a trinity, 
therefore, the Bible teaching of a trinity is not true. 
The gropings of the heathen religions after a trinity, 
and their inability to construct a consistent scheme of that 
view of the Godhead, are only evidences of a rational 
need and desire in human nature, which only the true 
Christian doctrine is able to supply; and the fact that 
Christianity is able to satisfy the inmost need of the be- 

239 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


liever is in itself proof of this truth. Dr. Shedd has well 
said, “the construction of the doctrine of the trinity 
started not from the consideration of the three persons, 
but from belief in the deity of one of them,’—namely 
Christ. Old Jeremy Taylor strikingly said: 


“He who goes about to speak of the mystery of the trinity 
and does it by words and names of man’s invention, talking 
of essence and existances, hypostacies and personalities, prior- 
ity and coequality, and unity in pluralities, may amuse him- 
self and build a tabernacle in his head, and talk something— 
he knows not what; but the renewed man that feels the power 
of the Father, to whom the Son is become wisdom, sanctifica- 
tion, and redemption, in whose heart the Spirit of God is 
shed abroad—this man, though he understands nothing of 
what is unintelligible, yet he alone truly understands the 
Christian doctrine of the Trinity.” 


JESUS NOT A PRODUCT OF EVOLUTION 


In asserting again the idea that the Deity of the Lord 
robs us of the Human Jesus, my opponent referred to 
evolution. He asserted that Jesus came from “the chain 
of evolution by which we and our fathers, long ages ago, 
evolved from still more primitive ancestors’’—that is, 
the beasts! This makes Jesus Christ a half-brother to 
the apes! In fact, his entire argument was that Jesus 
came by purely naturalistic means; as my opponent put 
it, “out of all this struggle, this drama of evolution, this 
chain of cause and effect.”’ Like other Modernists, there- 
fore, my opponent claims that Jesus Christ was merely 
a product of evolution. The Modernists call Him the 
“fairest flower of evolution.” They say that He was di- 
vine, in the sense that all men have in them a spark of 
divinity, but that He had it in an unusual degree. But 
can this claim that Christ was a product of evolution stand 
in the face of known facts? I answer emphatically that 
it cannot. If He was a product of “evolution,” then he 
came simply as the result of the combined influences of 

240 


REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


His heredity and His environment. We cannot believe 
that such was the case. As to His environment, He was 
born in one of the most sin-cursed and degraded days in 
the world’s history, and in the sordid, sensuous Roman 
Empire; and as to His heredity, if He was not what the 


Bible clearly claims for Him, then He was the illegitimate 
son of an impure woman. And from such an environ- 
ment and such an heredity, we are told, sprung the pro- 
foundest wisdom, the greatest love and the most beauti- 
ful holiness that our earth has ever known! We can 
not accept such a contradiction! 

If Jesus came by evolution, then why are we not now 
evolving other and higher Christs? The fundamental 
dogma of its devotees is that evolution is a continuous 
process. Then why doesn’t it continue by producing 
higher Christs? No! Jesus Christ was not only not a 
product of evolution, but His life, and especially His res- 
urrection from the dead, utterly disprove the theories of 
evolution. His resurrection broke the “law of death,” 
and that miracle negatives the entire idea of evolution. 
How could a dead man “evolve” back into life? It is 
absurd! 


GORILLAS AT CHURCH 


We notice from the papers this morning that my op- 
ponent celebrated “Evolution Day” in his church yes- 
terday, and that he unveiled there Mr. Carl Akeley’s 
statue called ““The Chrysalis”—a statue of a man emerg- 
ing from a gorilla. This statue, though it was rejected 
by the Academy of Design, is supposed to give an artistic 
expression of man’s alleged emergence from the brute. 

What we need in our churches today, however, are 
statues of the divine Christ and not statues of men com- 
ing out of gorillas! I take this opportunity, though in 
perfect good humor, to rebuke my opponent for such a 
desecration of the sanctuary! 

241 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


I noticed that both Mr. Akeley and my opponent, as 
reported in this morning’s papers, said at the unveiling 
of that statue that animals are not “bestial’’—that “only 
man is bestial,’ etc. What becomes, then, of the theory 
of evolution? We thought that we were coming up all 
the while! We thought that “every day in every way 
we are getting better and better!” But if men are more 
“bestial” than the animals from which they are supposed 
to have come, then doesn’t that, in itself, prove that we 
are a fallen race and that we need a divine Savior? All 
history confirms that fact. The Bible teaches it explicitly 
and tells us that the God-Man, Jesus Christ, is the Savior 
—not a product of evolution, but “the only begotten Son 
of the Father.” 


REBUTTAL OF THE REBUTTAL 


Now a few words of rebuttal of the rebuttal, and I 
will try to make all this “butting” just as gentle as pos- 
sible, because my opponent has simply not established the | 
affirmative of this debate at all! 

My opponent, appealing still to mere rationalism, re- 
marked that our finite minds are the “only minds we have 
brought with us tonight.” Yes, but some of us, at least, 
have also brought our hearts, and once more the Bible 
says: “Guard thy heart with all diligence, for out of it 
are the issues of life.” 

His remarks on the Logos doctrine were entirely be- 
side the mark. The Greek word Logos is simply one of 
the terms used in the Bible in connection with the eternal 
Son of God; and the significant fact is not how the word 
came to be used by the writers of the New Testament, 
but that it is employed to express the thought that Christ 
was God’s Son; and, contrary to my opponent’s assertions, 
John did specifically declare that it was the Logos, the 
Christ, who made the world. 

My opponent had something to say about old fashioned 
Bible exposition, and he remarked that it “doesn’t go 

242 


REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


Ma 


any more.” He thus endeavored skilfully to glide around 
an entire group of Scripture quotations, which I gave, and 
my argument founded upon them; but I merely point out 
that this clever evasion did not answer either the Bible 
facts or my arguments. [I retort, therefore, by saying 
that that sort of dodging by the Modernists does not “go” 
either! Bible exposition and matching of verse with 
verse is entirely legitimate. We are commanded to 
“rightly divide the word of truth.” That is only what 
Jesus did when “beginning at Moses and all the prophets, 
He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things 
concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). 


THE CRY FROM THE CROSS 


My opponent asks again how Jesus could have been 
divine when He cried from the cross “My God, My God, 
why hast thou forsaken me?” I will tell him. In His 
suffering on the cross Christ, as our vicarious atonement, 
took the place of sinful men. The tragic and terrible 
result of sin is separation from God, which means spirit- 
ual death ; and on the cross, as our substitute, Jesus Christ 
tasted death for every man. When that agonized cry 
was wrung from His parched lips, “My God, My God, 
why hast thou forsaken me?” it meant that Jesus, in 
that crucial hour of the atonement, was separated from 
God the Father, and thus He endured for all mankind 
that supreme penalty for human sin! Instead of being 
an occasion for doubt and almost for ridicule, that solemn 
and heart-piercing cry ought to bring us all to our knees 
in penitence at the foot of the cross! 

That was surely a strange remark my opponent made 
when, in his effort to answer my argument that it was 
a divine and not a human love that was in Christ because 
He died for His enemies, he said that that was nothing— 
that many during the World War died for their enemies. 
Well, I for one, did not hear of any one, even soldiers, 
during the war dying for their enemies. I thought that 

243 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


our American soldiers crossed the seas, and endured the | 
privations of muddy trenches, and suffered pain and even — 
laid down their lives, in defense of human liberty and - 
eternal righteousness, and for the sake of the loved ones - 
at home. I did not hear of any American soldiers who - 
died for the Germans. Only Christ, the divine Son of | 
God, could do such a thing as that. 


SUPERIORITY TO JESUS CHRIST 


My opponent, commenting on “demon possession” in 
Christ’s day, gave himself away, and nullified all of his 
tributes to Christ’s greatness, by remarking: “But we 
now know better than that, and none of us believe in 
demon possession.” There we have it! We of today 
are wiser than the eternal Christ! Think of the absurd- 
ity of having as an object of religious leadership one 
whom we know to have been more foolish than we our- : 
selves! And like other modernists, my opponent even 
insinuated that Jesus was a sinner like the rest of us. 
This is shocking, and I very definitely rebuke it. Let 
no mortal man cast that reproach upon the Stainless Son 
of God! | 

I sufficiently covered the subject of miracles in my 
main speech. I will only remark here, therefore, that 
while some men have worked miracles, their miracle 
were performed only through the direct power of God, 
which was given them specifically for the working of 
those miracles. My opponent said that Elijah raised the 
dead, and gave us the scripture, (First Kings 17:22); 
but it does not say Elijah raised the dead; it says, “And 
the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the 
child came into him again, and he revived.” Ist Kings: 
17:21 says that Elijah stretched himself upon the child 
three times and cried unto the Lord. And in Acts 3:12, 
Peter, after a miracle, asked: ‘‘Why look ye so earnestly 
at us, as if we made this man to walk?” But this miracle- 
working power was native and permanent in Jesus Christ, 

244 








REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


as was proved by the fact that He worked all sorts of 
miracles and was constantly performing miracles. With 
the will of divine authority and not calling upon God 
at all, He cried with a loud voice: ‘‘Lazarus come 
forth,’ and he came forth! (John 11:45). The further 
fact that it was through His own power that He Himself 
was raised from the dead proves that nothing short of the 
power of God Himself was in Him. 


UNITARIAN “GROWTH”’ 


And now as to the matter of the rapid growth of the 
great Protestant denominations and the slow growth of 
the Unitarians in comparison, I wish to say that I was 
particular not to violate the courtesies of this debate. I 
did not cast any “slur” on Unitarians, as my opponent 
alleged. I have no unkindness in my heart toward any 
one, but this debate is really over the issues that divide 
Trinitarianism from Unitarianism and, therefore, what 
I said was entirely legitimate in the discussion. 

I wish to point out, in this connection, that during 
this series of four debates, I have not once mentioned 
my own great and glorious Baptist denomination,—eight 
millions strong, in this country. I have carefully avoided 
that, as we are discussing great and dignified religious 
issues, and I did not care to capitalize the debates for 
the profit of my own denomination. 

On the other hand, in every debate, my opponent has 
seemingly endeavored to make capital for the Unitarians. 
He had the right, of course to do this, if he so desired, 
and I will not criticize him for getting any possible credit 
he can for his struggling denomination. 

We have endeavored to keep these debates on a high 
plane, and there is nothing of unfriendliness or unkind- 
ness in what I have said. It is simply a question of facts, 
and as my opponent has referred repeatedly to the Uni- 
tarians in the course of the debates, it is entirely proper 
that I should give the real facts in the case. When in 

245 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


the first debate (that on the Bible), I mentioned Daniel 
Webster, my opponent (always very alert and very agile) 
in his rebuttal speech immediately claimed Webster for 
the Unitarians. In the second debate (that ow Evolution) 
when the name of Charles Darwin came up, my opponent 
seized upon that name at once and announced Charles 
Darwin as a Unitarian. In the third debate (that on 
the Virgin Birth), my opponent took occasion to bring 
in the name of Dr. Elliot, and proudly, paraded him as 
a Unitarian; and again and again, in all the debates, my 
opponent has referred to the proportion of Unitarians 
in the Hall of Fame. Well, if they have done a worthy 
service, I am glad they are in the Hall of Fame, but the 
Hall of Fame is not a religious institution. We are 
talking about what is being done in the realm of religion, 
and the facts that I gave are entirely germane to this 
debate. I was entirely within my rights when I referred 
to the undeniable fact that, just as Dr. Brown said, the 
body which conspicuously holds the lower view of Christ’s 
person does not grow and increase, nor show the mis- 
sionary zeal and soul winning power that characterize 
the denominations that hold to His deity and worship 
Him as God. That is what I said, and I was careful, 
instead of giving direct statements of my own, to quote 
Dr. Brown, who is not a member of my own denomina- 
tion, and who is recognized as one of the fairest men in 
the country, and one who is certainly not given to preju- 
dice. 
POISONING THE TRUTH 


It is not a question simply of “social service,” or start- 
ing this reform agency, or the other, as my opponent 
seems to think, judging by the names of Unitarians which 
he mentioned, and the different social service and relief 
organizations with which they are connected. It is pri- 
marily a question of real religious power and of soul- 
winning enthusiasm and zeal; and Dr. Brown is entirely 

246 


REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


right in pointing out that only those who hold to the 
higher view of Christ’s person have this miraculous, spir- 
itual, soul-saving power. He says further in his little 
book “Who is Jesus Christ?”’: 

“The denomination which holds the lower view of Christ’s 

person [that is the Unitarians] once had a piece of property 
in Boston where they had been using their own humane 
methods to help people, and they had been doing it with 
unstinted generosity. But they discovered that their preach- 
ing did not lay hold of the people in that section. It was in 
one of the poorer parts of Boston, not far from the red light 
district, a place where men and women were overcome by the 
coarsest sins. By and by they took what was a very large- 
minded action. They went to the Methodists and said that 
they were willing to let them take the property for a nominal 
rental and see what they could do with it. The Methodists 
took the work over. Today it has become the great Morgan 
Memorial work in Boston. It was a very handsome action on 
the part of the owners of the property, but it was practically 
a recognition of the fact that the gospel containing the higher 
view of Christ’s person has a power over men that their 
gospel has not.” 
This is a concrete illustration of what I mean when I say 
that there is a regenerating power through faith in Jesus 
Christ as divine. Nor does the number of Buddhists have 
anything to do with it. The idea of comparing the igno- 
rant hordes of Buddhists with the enlightened hosts of 
Christianity! And certainly there would be fewer Chris- 
tians in the world, and even more Buddhists in proportion, 
if we had depended on those who deny Christ’s deity to 
send out missionaries and make converts in the heathen 
lands, for it is notorious that there is no real missionary 
zeal among those who thus deny the Lord. 

My opponent boasted that many Congregationalists and 
others today are being won over to Unitarian views, even 
though they do not become Unitarians in name. This 
doubtless is in some part true, but only in part. Mod- 
ernism did not come out of Unitarianism, but Unitarian- 
ism came out of Modernism. These forces, however, 

247 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


at the present time are undoubtedly working hand in 


| 


hand, and if my opponent gets any satisfaction out of 
the fact that the Unitarians and the other Modernists | 


are poisoning the springs of religious truth in the 
Protestant denominations and endeavoring to paralyze 
their soul-winning zeal and power, then he is welcome 
to that sort of glory. 


ADROIT SIDE STEPPING 


My opponent said that I quoted from Jesus such state- 
ments as “I am the Light,” “I am the Resurrection,” “Eat 
my Body,” etc., and that I claimed, therefore, because of 
these passages, that Jesus was divine. You will remem- 
ber, however, that I only claimed that these particular 
passages to which my opponent refers implied the deity 
of Jesus, and I passed then from such passages to a 
whole array of other passages, in which the teaching was 
very specific that He was more than man. Why did not 
my opponent reply to these other great and striking pas- 
sages? He challenged me to give one scripture in which 
Jesus explicitly claimed that He was God, and I gave not 
only one but several. Why did not my opponent reply 
to that tremendous passage which I quoted from Revela- 
tion (1:8), in which Jesus specifically said “J am... the 
Almighty” ? 

Why did he not reply to the passage I quoted where 
Jesus said to the blind man that He was the Son of God 
and accepted the man’s worship? When Jesus said that 
He was “‘the Son of God,” that meant just what the Bible 
means elsewhere where it refers to Him as “the only 
begotten Son of God.” It means that He was God’s 


Son,—begotten by God only and born of the Virgin — 


Mary. It means that through that incarnation he was 
God-incarnate—deity in human flesh. Such statements 
from Jesus claim just that, and they cannot mean any- 
thing else at all. 
My opponent made no reply, in fact did not even at- 
248 


REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


tempt to reply, to that great passage in Romans 9:5, 
where it is said “And of whom concerning the flesh Christ 
came, who is over all God Blessed forever.” Nor did he 
answer that other great passage from Titus (2:13), the 
authorized version translating it, “looking for that blessed 
hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and 
Savior, Jesus Christ,”—-both God and Savior! And so 
with other like passages. 


WHY NOT FAITH? 


When it comes to Thomas, he just adroitly got around 
that and referred to a Roman Emperor. But we are not 
debating a Roman Emperor here tonight; we are debat- 
ing Jesus Christ here tonight! And Thomas said to 
Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” and Jesus did not rebuke 
him and say: “I am only a man; do not worship me; 
that is idolatry; that would be blasphemous, Thomas.” 
No. When Thomas said directly to Jesus, “My Lord 
and my God,” Jesus, delighted by it, went on and spoke 
of his faith and commended it and accepted his worship, 
even as he accepted the worship of the blind man whose 
eyes he had opened! Why try to discount this clear and 
overwhelming passage by the assertion, that some Mod- 
ernists make, that the words of Thomas were a mere ex- 
clamation—a sort of oath born of his surprise—when 
it is known that the Jews were not given to any such 
blasphemous oaths? Or, again, why try, as my opponent 
_ did, to dismiss this tremendous passage by a mere quibble 
over what some servile sycophant said to a rotten old 
Roman emperor? 

I take this opportunity to enter an earnest protest 
against this wrong dealing with God’s word. I humbly, 
but most emphatically, rebuke these methods as unwar- 
ranted; and I express the hope that my opponent, with 
his naturally noble mind, will throw off the influences 
which have come to him from his modernistic schooling 
and forgo further effort to discredit scripture by such 


means. 
249 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


Every author has a right to be allowed to say what he 
is trying to say, and that applies to the Holy Spirit, the 
Author of the Bible, as much as to any other author. 
Why torture and twist and distort the Old Book? Why 
snatch at every imaginary straw of scepticism and dust 
of doubt, even, in the frantic effort to discredit it? Why 
try to pick its every alleged flaw? Why not a little faith 
and trust? Why not a little appreciation for its glorious 
truth and beauty? Why not the acceptance of the Bible, 
and a word of praise for its noble fruitage of righteous- 
ness and truth down the ages? And at least why not 
fair treatment and square dealing with it? Why not bow 
with Thomas in reverence and love before Jesus Christ, 
instead of straining every point to explain the incident 
away and minimize His glory? 


SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT 


I will not go into further detail, therefore, in answer 
to the efforts of my opponent to dispose of these tre- 
mendous Bible passages which, beyond any question, 
teach that Jesus Christ was more than a man, that He 
was incarnate deity. 

I have shown the overwhelming sweep of Scripture 
teaching, though I have by no means used all of the 
great passages that I might have used, and his effort to 
establish the mere humanity of Jesus, as against this 
great array of Scripture teaching, I submit has been 
entirely futile. I have shown in specific instances where 
my opponent made errors in interpretation even, when 
he did take up certain passages, and I have shown how 
he has failed to reply to the overwhelming array of scrip- 
ture passages showing the fact that Jesus Christ was 
more than a mere man. 

My opponent has given absolutely no satisfactory ex- 
planation of the tremendous paradoxes in the life of 
Jesus Christ, which I pointed out in the beginning, which 

250 


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REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


must be satisfactorily explained if he is to be classified 
as only man. I presented a great array of passages show- 
ing that the general teaching of the Bible sets forth the 
fact that God is a Trinity and that Jesus Christ is a mem- 
ber of that Trinity. In the next place I then cited many 
Bible passages which ascribed to Jesus Christ all the at- 
tributes of God—such as wisdom, sinlessness, love and 
miracle working power—which prove, therefore, that he 
was God incarnate. I next brought to your attention 
the overwhelming claims which Jesus Christ made for 
Himself, and then I pointed out His world changing, soul- 
saving after-influence as a proof of His past and present 
deity. 

To establish the affirmative of this debate, and win the 
decision, it was necessary not merely for my opponent to 
answer these specific teachings of the Bible in adequate 
fashion, but it was necessary for him to bring a stronger 
array of proof to substantiate his contention that Jesus 
Christ was nothing more than man. 

I submit that he has not done this at all. Not only 
this, but I submit that he has not replied in any adequate 
or comprehensive way to any one of the main divisions 
of my arguments, much less all of them taken together. 

My opponent has not only not proved the affirmative, 
thereby disproving the deity of Jesus, but at the really 
vital points he scarcely touched the true issue, and step 
by step I have answered what he did have to say. I 
therefore ask for a decision at the hands of the judges. 


NOT ACADEMIC ISSUES 


I wish to say, in closing, that we are not dealing with 
mere academic issues in these debates. These religious 
issues are of vital and tremendous moment. Listen: 
Roger Babson, one of the greatest business men of this 
nation, has said recently that the one hope of the world 
is a revival of real religion. He is right in that. He 

251 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


said that, my friends, as a business man. Richard Ed- 
monds, the editor of the Manufacturers’ Record, has 
given utterance again and again through his great com- 
mercial paper, to the same vital truth. What we do need 
today, above everything else, is a revival of faith in the 
divine Christ, such as laid the foundations of this nation 
in purity, erected family altars in our homes, made the 
marriage vow a sacred thing, protected us from the 
divorce evil, and produced a race of pure women and 
noble men. Yes, what we need today is a revival of faith 
and love and hope—a revival of belief in Jesus Christ, 
the world’s only Savior! 

And with great solemnity of soul, and yet a deep sense 
of responsibility, I wish to point out the Bible teaching 
that there is no other name given under heaven among 
men whereby we must be saved except the name of Jesus. 
If he is not a divine Savior, then the world is still lost 
and without a Savior. It is idle to speak of the unity 
and beauty of God apart from Jesus Christ. The Bible 
clearly teaches that we cannot find and truly know God 
the Father without faith in Christ the Son. 

Jesus Himself said, in John 14:6 “No man cometh to 
the Father except by me.” And John, the beloved disciple, 
in the fifth chapter of his first epistle says: 

“Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of 
God, and every one that loveth Him that begat (that is the 
Father) loveth Him also that is begotten of Him” (that is 
the Son) (1st John 5:1). 


The Bible makes very clear also the further fact that 
only those who are thus born again through faith in 
Christ the Son of God can overcome the world and live 
as God would have them live. So it is written here again 
in I John (5:4) 

“Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world; and 


this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” 
252 





REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


Then John makes it clearer’ still, and reinforces it by 
asking again: 


“Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth 
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?” (John 5:5.) 


Yes, the divine Christ is the Light of the World and 
the only hope of lost men. And He Himself taught that 
unbelief in Him is the supreme sin. He said that when 
the Holy Spirit was come, He would reprove the world 
“of sin, because they believed not on me” (John 16:9). 
And again He said: 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but 
have everlasting life. He that believeth on Him is not con- 
demned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, be- 
cause he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten 
Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is 
come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light 
because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:16-19.) 


A PERSONAL RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 


I wish here to take the witness stand, if I may. In the 
first debate of this series my opponent quoted an experi- 
ence that he had, and gave his testimony in connection 
with some of his doubts about prayer and about the Bible, 
etc., when he was a lad. I therefore accept this oppor- 
tunity to give my experience. Yes, I will take the witness 
stand, if you please, for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 
I was reared in a good home by godly parents, but at the 
age of eighteen, under the temptations of a great city, 
had drifted into sin. Through scepticism about these very 
old truths of God’s Word, I had turned from my moral 
ideals, and was loving sin and following it. But I hap- 
pened one day into the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, 
Ga. I heard there an old-fashioned gospel sermon. It 
was taken right out of the Bible, and it held up Christ on 
the Cross as the only hope of sinful men. The voice of 

253 5k 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


God spoke to my conscience through that sermon, and the 
Power of Christ changed my heart and altered the whole 
direction of my life. I was truly born again, I was 
literally made “a new creature.” The sins I had loved, I 
hated and turned away from, and the righteousness I had 
despised I grew again to love and follow. What power 
was it that thus gave this poor man a new heart and a 
transformed life, if it was not the power of the divine 
Christ? Nothing can ever take that experience away 
from me. As well let an infidel tell a man who had been 
cured of the smallpox, that he was mistaken, that there 
is no such thing as smallpox and that he had not been 
cured, as to tell me that Jesus Christ is not the Son of 
God, when I know by my own experience that he worked 
a miracle, and by His divine Power changed my heart and 
redeemed my life from sin and spiritual death! I can 
stand, therefore, in the presence of all who doubt the deity 
of Jesus and say with that blind man whose eyes He 
opened: “One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now 
I see’; and I can say also with that same man, in answer 
to the sceptics who doubt Jesus: 


“Herein is a marvelous thing that ye know not from 
whence He is, and yet He hath opened mine eyes.” 


AGE-LONG POWER 


And it is through this transforming power on indi- 
viduals that Jesus Christ has wrought His miraculous 
changes in social customs and human institutions. Into 
that fierce and strenuous Roman World, surrendered to 
sensualism and steeped in selfishness, He sent a transform- 
ing power that softened and elevated it. That power has 
continued to work in all the after ages. 

As we are debating here tonight, men and women and 
little children the world over are giving their lives in the 
service of Jesus Christ, because they believe Him to be 
divine and because they worship Him as God. Down in 

254 


REBUTTAL FOR THE NEGATIVE 


the slums of our great cities, out upon the frontiers of 
the far West, on the ships plowing distant seas, among 
the snows of the frozen North, in the burning heat of the 
tropics, in the midst of the superstitions and the sordid 
shame of heathenism, everywhere, the ambassadors of 
Christ are working to carry his message and to redeem 
sinful men by the power of His divine love. Yes, and 
the round world over, they are still writing and singing 
in His worship the most glorious hymns that have ever 
sprung from the human heart—“Jesus, Lover of My 
Wie Looks vel rants, the’, sieht) Is Glorious: ? 
“Nearer My God to Thee,” “Love Divine All Love Ex- 
celling,”’ “In the Cross of Christ I Glory,” and hundreds 
of others that pour out the love of grateful souls to the 
divine Son of God! Instead of seeking to lessen His 
stature, all the children of men should strive to enlarge 
it and to add greater glory to His name. 

It is said that when Victoria was crowned Queen of the 
British Empire a touching and inspiring incident occurred. 
Those in charge of the ceremonies in Westminster Abbey 
had instructed the young Queen to remain seated at the 
close of the exercises. When the choir reached the climax 
of Handel’s oratorio, “The Messiah,” all the people, com- 
moners and nobility alike, were expected to stand, except 
the Queen, in order that royalty might be given distinc- 
tion. But when the great choir reached that sublime pas- 
sage, “He shall reign forever and ever,” the young Queen 
was seen to tremble upon the throne; and then when a 
great rush of melody swelled out in that supremely glort- 
ous line, “Lord of Lords and King of Kings,” it is said 
that Victoria could stand it no longer, but that she also 
rose from her seat upon the throne and, with tears on her 
cheeks and trembling hands, removed the crown from her 
head and bowed in humility before Him who alone has 
the right to expect the veneration of our minds and the 
homage of our hearts. 

205 


WAS CHRIST BOTH GOD AND MAN? 


May we of today so bow before Him! 

If the diadem is snatched from His brow, then the 
glory of our race has faded! If the scepter is taken from 
His hand, then our last hope is dead! Instead of carping 
criticism and pale-lipped doubt, as we stand in that sub- 
lime Presence, every heart should exultingly sing: 


“All hail the power of Jesus’ name! 
Let angels prostrate fall; 
Bring forth the royal diadem, 
And crown Him Lord of all! 


Let every kindred, every tribe 
On this terrestrial ball, 

To Him all majesty ascribe 
And crown Him Lord of AIL!” 


256 


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